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Education Development Toolkit

Embedding Sustainability in Learning and Teaching

A Sustainability theme page

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Textbook Insights

‘...education can contribute to social transformation if it is informed by a paradigm characterized by reflection, participation, empowerment and self-organization' (Sterling 2001 in Cotton, et al., 2007).

'Shifting to models of collaborative and transformative learning is necessary if we are shifting towards models of sustainability education’ (Moore 2005, p552).

‘...education can contribute to social transformation if it is informed by a paradigm characterized by reflection, participation, empowerment and self-organization' (Sterling 2001 in Cotton, et al., 2007)

Try the following steps (not necessarily all of them and not necessarily in this order!) to embed ESD in learning and teaching in your context:

Step 1

Consider your pedagogical approach

‘The focus in ESD is on tackling ‘sustainability’ not just conceptually or through research: its primary focus is pedagogic, to respond to sustainability as a learning agenda for societies and an imperative for rethinking education.’

(Ryan and Tilbury 2013)

To support the aim of embedding sustainability in learning and teaching, we need to look at developing a pedagogy that is transformative rather than transmissive, which supports skill development as well as knowledge development in learners.

You might already be doing some of this. Try the reflective activity below to reflect on where this might be enhanced in your practice.

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ESD Reflective Activity: connecting SDGs and curricula

Have a look at the 17 SDGs and their targets.

  • Which SDG or SDG target most easily aligns to your discipline, area or role? Are there any that are especially challenging to meet?
  • Which SDGs do you feel you are currently incorporating in your practice?
  • Can you identify when, where and how you could explicitly link your curriculum, module or individual sessions to the SDGs?

Students should be able to understand and explain why sustainability is about more than the natural environment and rather involves a multi-layered approach that supports a better, more socially-just future for everyone by recognising and addressing social and natural issues, and overcoming challenges through collaborative, strategic and innovative thinking and actions.

Step 2

Consider the UNESCO key competencies

The UNESCO key competencies for ESD are summarised below. If you familiarise yourself with these, you may find that you are already supporting ESD through your teaching practice.

There are eight key competencies comprised of three strands: ways of thinking, ways of doing/practising and ways of being.

This involves looking at problems holistically by understanding and analysing complex systems across different areas such as social environment, natural environment, and economic environment. It involves understanding that all these systems are interconnected and that to solve problems in one requires solving problems in another.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • recognise and understand relationships
  • analyse complex systems
  • consider how systems are embedded within different domains and scales
  • deal with uncertainty

This engages people in imagining visions for the future. It involves the exploration of current assumptions while continuously refining your own thinking about society, the status quo, and what this could mean for the future. This process of anticipatory envisioning futures leads people to take ownership, responsibility, and action for more sustainable futures.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • understand and evaluate multiple outcomes
  • create their own visions for the future
  • apply the precautionary principle
  • assess the consequences of actions
  • deal with risks and changes

This skill focuses on the ability to question norms, practices, and views (including your own) and to take a position in the ESD discourse.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • question norms, practices and opinions
  • reflect on one’s own values, perceptions and actions
  • take a position in the sustainable development discourse

Being able to collaboratively and creatively plan and implement innovative experiments to test new, more sustainable strategies, both locally and globally.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • to develop and implement innovative actions that further sustainable development at the local level and further afield

Understanding the value of collaborating with others from all levels and ages of society. Engaging empathetically and respectfully with communities is essential, as they value and include differing knowledge systems and perspectives. The process of participation is also important for creating co-ownership, empowerment, and group action for transformation.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • learn from others (including peers, and others inside and outside of their institution)
  • understand and respect the needs, perspectives and actions of others
  • deal with conflicts in a group
  • facilitate collaborative and participatory problem solving

This is a meta-skill that can be cultivated through high levels of reflection and transformation. Being able to combine disciplinary ways of knowing with other fields of knowledge to create a more holistic understanding that considers many routes to solutions. These are often paired with real-life contexts for authentic learning.

  • apply different problem-solving frameworks to complex sustainable development problems
  • develop viable, inclusive and equitable solutions
  • utilise appropriate competencies to solve problems

This involves the ability to reflect on your own role and agency in both local and global communities and to continually (re-)evaluate your actions, emotions, and motivations.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • reflect on their own values, perceptions and actions
  • reflect on their own role in the local community and global society
  • continually evaluate and further motivate their actions
  • deal with their feelings and desires

This relates closely to social justice and values thinking. It requires questioning normalized oppressive structures, being able to reflect and clarify your own values, and understanding the various layers of influence that have perpetuated these views.

A student who displays this competency can:

  • understand and reflect on the norms and values that underlie one’s actions
  • negotiate sustainable development values, principles, goals and targets, in a context of conflicts of interests and trade-offs, uncertain knowledge and contradictions

Step 3

Consider the UN SDGs and UNESCO learning objectives

Have a look at UNESCO learning objectives (2017) for support in making ESD more explicit in your discipline. This invaluable resource goes through each of the 17 SDGs and lists learning objectives for the cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural domains, as well as providing suggested topics and examples of learning approaches and methods. Consider which of the SDGs can best be addressed in your teaching context, look at the relevant section of the UNESCO learning objectives resource to see whether you are already doing any of the suggested activities, and get some ideas to enhance your practice and align your learning and teaching methods with ESD.

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Reflection

Armstrong (2011), lists the skills that should be instilled in students according to the principles of ESD, some of which overlap with the sustainable pedagogies:

  • collaboration and cooperation
  • conflict resolution
  • creative, imaginative and real-world problem solving
  • future-mindedness
  • knowledge transfer
  • meaningful communication and civic engagement
  • social sophistication
  • social action
  • negotiation
  • interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research skills
  • adaptive learning
  • contextualisaton of issues
  • personal introspection
  • visioning and gaining buy-in
  • the ability to identify and adapt to change
  • systems thinking
  • values-focussed thinking

Consider whether there are ways in which you can incorporate more of these skills in your teaching.

Top Tips

  • Think about the material you already deliver and consider how making changes to its delivery might enhance sustainability skills. How might you engage with one (or more) of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals?
  • Consider ways in which you could use local environment and community examples as learning resources.
  • Identify the sustainability skills that can be developed or reinforced in your discipline, and design learning and teaching activities to enhance these using sustainability pedagogies.
  • Try to identify how your teaching/curriculum equips students to deal with the 'triple crunch scenario' (of economic slowdown, rising energy costs and the transition to net zero energy) and evaluate how this can be embedded or improved.
  • Provide students with, and support them to develop, opportunities to put ESD learning into practice and to ‘live what they are learning’.
  • It may be useful to start by thinking about contemporary issues facing students and their local and global communities and then to create alignment between what is taught and the way it is taught. Try working with the students to see if they can highlight any issues.

Step 4

Consider further learning and teaching approaches that support, nurture and develop the ESD key competencies

Allowing students to work together in groups to solve problems, complete tasks or learn about new concepts. This can involve an individual or joint outcomes.  You can also build in opportunities for larger discussions and multi-layered activities to deepen the learning. To watch a short video on how to create a collaborative learning environment, click here.

This approach uses real-life scenarios, case studies and examples that act as a stimulus for investigation. Students investigate topics of relevance and interest within these that develop skills of critical analysis, problem solving, experimentation and innovation. To watch a short video on how to use i/enquiry learning, click here.

This involves using strategies such as playing games to teach and develop more complex concepts. Examples of this would be teaching an idea through gamification, game-based learning or simulation. There is often an emergent outcome to this strategy that allows for a range of outcomes to manifest. A great way to do this might be to ask students to adapt an existing game or create a new game that links their discipline to one or more of the 17 UN SDGs.

For a longer lecture on Play in HE by Prof. Alison James, click here. Or have a look at this short video from Dr Alyson Lewis on teaching using play in HE.

This process involves storytelling as a means of communicating ideas. For this strategy the learning is structured around a story as a means of sense-making. Often, several stories may be told as a means of illustrating how different realities might be constructed. This website may be of interest to you on encouraging story-telling and reading for all students.

This strategy involves group work where students are in small groups and investigate a real-world issue. It is similar to enquiry learning, however, this process has a more focused outcome as it is solving a specific problem. This approach works well with interdisciplinary learning, complex issues and ‘wicked problems’. To watch a short video on how to use Problem-based learning, click here.

Many of you may wish to explore the content of this toolkit with colleagues in your academic school or Professional Services team within the University. This could be done in several ways, with a non-exhaustive list below:

  • Board of Studies. Create an opportunity for module leaders in your School to talk about ESD and reflect on how this shapes existing teaching practices as well as what more could be done. It may be useful to do this in advance of module maintenance, to identify opportunities for changes to be made in (for example) learning objectives and assessments.
  • Staff Forums/Meetings. Create an opportunity during a regular staff meeting to explore ESD in the context of your discipline/focus of work. Such conversations can help to identify opportunities for introducing relevant sustainable development content and context, and nurturing competencies throughout a degree programme, for example.

Further support and CPD (resources, podcasts, blogs, courses)

The Commonwealth Library: A Curriculum Framework for the Sustainable Development Goals (2017)

UCL’s Teaching Toolkit for embedding sustainability into teaching and learning is an excellent resource and includes many case studies from different disciplines.

United Nations: UN SDG:Learn – SDG Learners today, SDG Leaders tomorrow! (unsdglearn.org)

SDG Academy: Free education resources supporting ESD from around the world from SDG Academy

Deeper Dive

Explore the CoDesignS Toolkit for further support on embedding ESD in the curriculum.

Explore ‘Sowing Seeds: How to make your modules a bit more sustainability orientated: A help guide to writing and modifying modules to incorporate sustainability principles’ from the Centre for Sustainable Futures, Plymouth University.

Section 9, ‘ESD in the disciplines’, of the Advance HE Future Fit Framework (Sterling, 2012) offers some useful examples/suggestions for introducing sustainability into various subject areas.

Podcasts: The Spaceship Earth, Coconut Thinking, The Sustainability Agenda

Audible: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Radical Wholeness by Philip Shepherd, The Treeline by Ben Rawlence

Further reading: Haraway, D. (2016) Staying with the Trouble, Duke University Press; Tsing, A., L., (2021) The Mushroom at the end of the world, USA: Princeton University Press

Armstrong, C. M. 2011. Implementing Education for Sustainable Development: the Potential Use of Time-Honoured Pedagogical Practice from the Progressive Era of Education. Journal of Sustainability Education 2

Cotton., D.R.E and Winter, J. (2010) ‘It’s not just bits of paper and light bulbs’: A review of    sustainability pedagogies and their potential for use in Higher Education. In (Eds) Jones, P., Selby, D. and Sterling, S. Sustainability education: Perspectives and practice across Higher Education. London: Earthscan pp39-54.

Ryan, A. and Tilbury, D. (2013) Flexible Pedagogies: New Pedagogical Ideas. Higher Education Academy, York.

Sípos, Y., Battisti, B., and Grimm, K. (2008) ‘Achieving transformative sustainability learning: Engaging heads, hands and heart’, International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education’, 9(1), pp.68-86. doi: 10.1108/14676370810842193

Sterling, S. (2012) The Future Fit Framework – an introductory guide to teaching and learning for sustainability in HE, Higher Education Academy, York

Wiek, A., Redman, A. (2022). What Do Key Competencies in Sustainability Offer and How to Use Them. In: Vare, P., Lausselet, N., Rieckmann, M. (eds) Competences in Education for Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development Goals Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-91055-6_4

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What Do We Mean By Sustainability?

Why Sustainability?

Sustainability Case Studies

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