climate action summit 2012 education for sustainability @ uws

Bringing Sustainability to Life

Climate Action Summit 2012

Education for Sustainability @ UWS


Forum OverviewFocus

• A new role for higher education – the opportunity

• Key lessons on effective change in education

• Motivators for engagement in EfS

• Building Education for Sustainability across the University


The strategic context & opportunity for UWS

• UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development – UN University & 100 RCEs

• AVCC (now UA) commitment to DESD 2006 & review 2012• Rio +20 – Higher Education Treaty on EfS• National Action Plan for EfS - 2009• ACARA & VET – specific focus on sustainability• Predicted increase in demand – Hanover 2010/GUNI• Talloires Network leaders conference• Sustainable Futures Leadership Academy• Universities as living laboratories on sustainability – the UWS

master plan for Hawkesbury


Key lessons from 40 years’ innovation & research in school, VET, higher and community education

• Good ideas with no ideas on how to implement them are wasted ideas

• Reformers have the misplaced notion that change is achieved by brute logic

• We rise to great heights by a winding staircase• Change doesn’t just happen but must be led• People are more likely to act their way into new ways of thinking

than think their way into new ways of acting• I hear & I forget, I see & I remember, I do & I understand• Change is a complex learning (and unlearning) process for all

concerned: it is not an event


What engages people in change (i.e. learning)?Relevance & feasibility

Intrinsic motivators• An immediate/shared crisis• Seeing an icon for one’s life about to disappear• The health of one’s children & loved ones• Relationships, relationships, relationships – connection• Moral purpose

Extrinsic motivators• Compliance• Penalties• Rewards & awards• Jobs/income – Walmart & the Blue Economy• Loss of business/strategic position/image


What engages people in change (i.e. learning) cont’d

Peer group• What the peer group does• Active encouragement and support• Workable solutions to gaps via a network of ‘fellow

travellers’

Seeing successful examples in action• Site visits• Virtual visits• University as a Living Laboratory for Sustainability


Emerging jobs and demandJobs & Enterprises• Environment, Energy, Water, Business, Industry, Law, Manufacture,

Design, Transport, Government, Public Policy, Councils, NGOs, NFPs, Blue Economy, compliance, sustainability accounting

• Half the employers in the UK are giving focus to this• US Bureau of statistics predicts increase of 20% by 2018

Demand• UK 2010 HE students – 80% believe skills in this area are key;

sustainability credentials of uni influence choice, 65% want EfS embedded

• USA – the Princeton study; Tufts as an exemplar; Tufts database• AASHE best schools with high demand – UCLA, New Hampshire, ASU,

Chico State, Emory, Furman, Portland State, San Diego State, Simon Fraser, UBC, Royal Roads


The Blue Economy – Money from Waste & Business as ecology


Some current EfS initiatives at UWS• UWS Riverfarm – a U.N. Case study of EfS

– Partnership with HEN, TAFE WSI, HCMA, GWS schools

• Living Laboratory– GPIS & augmented reality– Learning through experience– SURF

• UN University Regional Centre of Expertise in EfS

• Co-op Ed Students and placements


Key challenges & solutions – from TLSHE• The financial imperative• Engaging the senior executives• No room for more in the curriculum• Finding proven solutions and approaches –

networking with AASHE, Copernicus etc

Your views, questions & suggestions

climate action summit 2012 education for sustainability @ uws

Documents

sustainability accountinghalf

ones life

life key lessons

education motivators

decade of education

efs building education

higher education treaty

life emerging jobs