The Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit

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The Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit

• Rosalyn McKeown, Ph.D.
• University of Tennessee
• mckeowni_at_utk.edu

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The Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit

• Funded by
• The Waste Management Research
• and Education Institute

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ESD Toolkit

• is an easy-to-use manual that will help educators
  and community leaders create education for
  sustainable development programs.
• Is based on the ideas that communities and
  educational systems within those communities
  could dovetail their efforts to achieve community
  sustainability goals.

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ESD Toolkit

• Is designed to help schools and communities
  develop a process to create locally relevant and
  culturally appropriate education.
• Promotes creating a process for designing your
  own sustainability education program.
• Available in HTML or PDF on WWW at no charge to
  the user.

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ESD Toolkit create for USA, but

• Written for a North American audience. To my
  surprise, it is used around the world.
• 100,000 hits on WWW.
• Request for permission to translate into 17
  languages.
• Used by teacher education programs, universities,
  NGOS, governmental agencies, community
  development, private sector, etc.

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ESD Toolkit contains

• An introduction to sustainability.
• A description of the major thrusts and components
  of education for sustainable development.
• A discussion of 12 major issues that have slowed
  the progress of ESD.

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ESD Toolkit contains

• A case study of the Toronto Board of Education's
  community consultation and subsequent curriculum
  revision that indirectly addressed ESD as a
  result of the citizens' visions and desires.
• A description of management techniques for
  initiating change in schools.

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ESD Toolkit contains

• A brief description of public participation
  methods for including the citizenry in community
  decisions regarding sustainability and ESD.
• Exercises to help schools and communities to
• understand sustainability,
• create sustainability goals,
• reorient the curriculum to address
  sustainability, and
• initiate change within an educational system.

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ESD Toolkit contains

• Links to other Web sites on sustainability,
  education for sustainability, historic United
  Nations documents, and communities that have
  developed sustainability plans.

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http//www.esdtoolkit.org
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Design criteria for ESD Toolkit

• be locally relevant and culturally appropriate.
• be based on local needs, perception, and
  conditions.
• engage formal, nonformal, and informal education.
• be a life-long endeavor.
• accommodate the evolving nature of the concept of
  sustainability.
• address content, context, pedagogy, global
  issues, and local priorities.

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Warning ESD Toolkit should not promote

• imported from another cultural, economic, or
  geographic region.
• one size fits all.
• developed by people who are unfamiliar with local
  environmental, cultural, or economic conditions.

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ESD Toolkit is based on designcriteria and the
Strengths Model.
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The Strengths Model

• ESD is such a large task that efforts from many
  people and disciplines are needed to make
  progress.
• Elements of the Strengths Model
• Every discipline can contribute to ESD.
• Every teacher can contribute to ESD.
• Every administrator can contribute to ESD.
• No one discipline should claim ownership of ESD.

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Strengths Model cont.

• Each discipline contributes knowledge and skills.
• Each discipline contributes pedagogical methods.
• Someone needs to pull together the disciplinary
  and pedagogical pieces to form a comprehensive
  ESD program.

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Strengths Model Examples

• Mathematics helps students understand extremely
  small numbers (e.g., parts per hundred, thousand,
  or million), which allows them to interpret
  pollution data.
• Language Arts, especially media literacy, creates
  knowledgeable consumers who can analyze the
  messages of corporate advertisers and see beyond
  "green wash."
• History teaches the concept of global change,
  while helping students to recognize that change
  has occurred for centuries.

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Strengths Model Examples cont.

• Reading develops the ability to distinguish
  between fact and opinion and helps students
  become critical readers of political campaign
  literature.
• Social Studies helps students to understand
  ethnocentrism, racism, and gender inequity as
  well as to recognize how these are expressed in
  the surrounding community and nations worldwide.

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Note the difference

• Education about sustainable development is an
  awareness lesson or theoretical discussion.
• Education for sustainable development is the use
  of education as a tool to transform our societies
  to achieve sustainability.

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Education Promise and Paradox
Education is conceptualized as a great hope for
a more sustainable world. However, we know that
the most educated nations leave the deepest
ecological footprints. Clearly,
simply education citizenry to higher levels is
not sufficient.
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The ESD Toolkit gives users a process for
creating their own locally relevant and
culturally appropriate ESD programs.
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Exercises to Introduce the Concept of
Sustainable Development
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Exercises to Create Community Sustainability
Goals.
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Exercises to Reorient Education to Address
Sustainability
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What is Education for Sustainable Development
(ESD)?

• Improving access to quality basic education,
• Reorienting existing education,
• Improving public understanding and awareness, and
  
• Providing training.

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Reorienting Education A beginning step is to
complete the matrix
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Exercises on Managing Change
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Managing Change

• Reorienting education to address sustainability
  will require change at every level.
• Change in curriculum, programs, practices, and
  policies.
• All this change will require planning and skill
  to implement.

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Main themes from ESD Toolkit

• ESD must be locally relevant and culturally
  appropriate, reflecting the environmental,
  economic, and social conditions of your
  community.
• ESD should be created through a process of public
  participation in which stakeholders from across
  the community can express their visions for a
  sustainable community and what an education
  reoriented to address sustainability should
  include.

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Main themes from ESD Toolkit cont.

• Each discipline, teacher, and administrator can
  contribute to ESD according to the strengths
  model.
• Communities and school systems should work
  together to achieve community sustainability
  goals.

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Education is our great hope for a sustainable
future. By taking on the important task of
implementing ESD you are bringing the possibility
of a more sustainable future to your community
and nation.
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Reference

• Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit
• http//www.esdtoolkit.org
• By Rosalyn McKeown, Charles Hopkins, Regina
  Rizzi, and Marianne Chrystalbridge.
• Funded by the Waste Management Research and
  Education Institute.

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Contact Information
Dr. Rosalyn McKeown, Director Center for
Geography and Environmental Education University
of Tennessee 311 Conference Center
Bldg. Knoxville TN 37996-4134 USA Telephone 1
865 974-1835 Fax [phone] Email
mckeowni_at_utk.edu