Sustainable development as a Pedagogical Challenge

Workshop

Sustainable development remains a critically urgent concept but it is also inevitably (is it?) vague and even contested. Some argue that sustainable development cannot be taught but that as educators we have a duty to meaningfully engage learners in the search for a world that is more sustainable than the one currently in prospect. To do so new forms of teaching and learning are necessary that can help students deal better with complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and with values and moral dilemmas but also with the risk of apathy and powerlessness. Just like ´business-as-usual´ is no longer an option, neither is ´education-as-usual´.

The overall objective with this workshop is to explore, together with teachers from different scientific areas, methods to engage students meaningfully in sustainable development in the context of higher education at Chalmers and Gothenburg university. We discuss how we can transform education, in our own fields, so that it becomes more relevant in terms of building capacity for students to meet the global challenges that they will meet in the future.

Chaired by professor Arjen Wals

The workshop is chaired by Arjen Wals, professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University in The Netherlands, the Carl Bennet Guest Professor in Education for Sustainable Development at Gothenburg University and senior advisor at the Centre for Environment and Sustainability, GMV.

Practical information:

Two workshops are arranged and you are welcome to participate in one of them.

During the workshop we will practice a few methods by literally "walking the talk" so bring a pair of comfortable shoes and an umbrella in case of rainy weather.

Sign up for workshop 1, October 5th, or workshop 2, October 25th, here!

UPDATE: The workshops are full, to sign up for reserve list email eddi.omrcen@gu.se.