ecological literacy - a foundation for sustainability
TRANSCRIPT
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Ecological LiteracyA Foundation for Sustainability
www.eco-labs.org
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The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social- psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent, intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982
Why? ContextPresently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
What? Systems, Networks, Values Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with complexity and think in terms of systems to address current ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful tools to help with this learning process.
How? Transformational LearningThe value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice based design work.
ReferencesFritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the
ecological sustainable systems of nature. Fritjof Capra, 2003
Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT SustainabilityContent and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodatedinto existing system. Learning ABOUT change. ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR SustainabilityAdditional values emphasis. Greening of institutions. Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE EducationCapacity building and action emphasis. Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities. Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
[email protected] | [email protected] poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
GOODDESIGN
The Visual Communication of Ecological LiteracyJody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
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ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
We have to learn to see the world anew. Einstein
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The world is a complex, interconnected,
finite, ecological-social-psychological-
economic system. We treat it as if it were
not, as if it were divisible, separable, simple,
and infinite. Our persistent, intractable,
global problems arise directly from this
mismatch.
Donella Meadows, 1982
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We live in a profoundly relational world, but
our perceptual, intellectual and learning
tools are inadequate to properly see and
appreciate this reality, and to develop an
appropriate ‘systemic wisdom’.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
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Content
1. Context
2. Concept
3. Key ideas
4. History
5. Development
6. Practice
7. Learning
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The volume of education has increased and
continues to increase, yet so do pollution,
exhaustion of resources, and the dangers
of ecological catastrophe. If still more
education is to save us, it would have to be
education of a different kind: education that
takes us into the depth of things.
Schumacher, 1974
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1. Context
Springer-Verlag. The New Scientist.
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Living Planet Report 2008. WWF
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Living Planet Report 2006. WWF
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Earth’s Natural Wealth: an Audit. The New Scientist
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The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006
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Global production of oil and gas
The Oil CrunchSecuring the UK’s energy futureFirst report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)
The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006
The Oil Crunch. The UK Industry Taskforce
on Peak Oil and Energy Security.
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ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
2. Concept
The interlocking global crises of unsustainability requires a far more fundamental social learning and educational response than environ-mental education, as a largely marginalized and contained body of thought and practice, has yet been able to effect.
Sterling, 2005
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The development of ecological understanding
is not simply another subject to be learnt but
a fundamental change in the way we see the
world.
John Lyle, 1994
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Ecological Literacypostmodern ecological worldview
shift from mechanistic metaphor and paradigm
towards an ecological metaphor and paradigm
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The first step in our endeavor to build sustainable
communities must be to become ‘ecologically literate’,
i.e. to understand of the principles of organization,
common to all living systems, that ecosystems have
evolved to sustain the web of life…
Fritjof Capra, 2002
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This systemic understanding of life allows us
to formulate a set of principles of organization
that may be identified as the basic principles
of ecology and used as guidelines for building
sustainable human communities...
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We need to apply our ecological knowledge to
the fundamental redesign of our technologies
and social institutions, so as to bridge the current
gap between human design and the ecological
sustainable systems of nature.
Fritjof Capra, 2002
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Systems thinking asserts that valid knowledge
and meaningful understanding comes from
building up whole pictures of phenomenon, not
by breaking them into parts.
3. Key Ideas
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• shift thinking from objects to processes
• shift thinking about relationships from
hierarchies to networks
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Whole Systems Thinking= systemism + ecologism
= systems thinking + ecological thought
•extensionofperception
•connectioninconceptualthinking
•integrationofplanningandaction
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•Not all systems thinking is ecological.
•Not all ecological thinking is aware of systems
thinking.
Stephen Sterling
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Paradigm
Thomas Kuhn
The Structure of Scientif ic Revolutions, 1962
A basic way of perceiving, thinking, valuing and
doing associated with a particular vision of reality.
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Paradigm
A constellation of concepts, values, perceptions,
and practices shared by a community, which forms
a particuliar vision of reality that is the basis of the
whole the community organizes itself.
Capra, 1986
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Implicit in the notion of paradigm is the relative
unawareness of deep assumptions.
Paradigms have a normative aspect – they
tell people what is important, legitimate and
reasonable.
Patton, 1990
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Paradigms are the lens through which we look a
the world and it therefore determines what we
perceive. A paradigm is a set of beliefs or as-
sumptions we make about the world, normally
beneath the level of awareness and therefore
mostly never questioned.
Stacey, 1996
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Three components of a paradigm
ethos - belief, imaginal, dimension - epistemology
eidos - dimension of ideas / concepts - ontology
praxis - reflective intention and action - methodology
Stephen Sterling
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Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
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EpistemologyThe study of the nature of knowledge,
its origins, structure and validity.
- ‘how we know’
- epistemic learning = transformative learning
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Challenge of unsustainability requires a deep
learning response, which may be termed
transformative or epistemic learning
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Gregory Bateson suggested we suffer from
‘a fundamental epistemological error’
in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).
4. History
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Scientific revolution (17th century)
Radical change in epistemological position / paradigm
A: Shift away from Medieval Christianity
- end of the idea of a sacred world
B: Copernicus, Galileo & Issac Newton
- geocentric view of the world displaced by astronomy
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C: Scientific method:
- Francis Bacon & Rene Descartes
- empiricism
- reductive thinking
- dualism:
subject & object
mind & body,
people & nature
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- the whole was no more than the sum of the parts
- mechanical world- world as a machine metaphor
- facts and values are unrelated
- vision of the material world as a great machine.
- reductionism tries to gain understanding of a
phenomenon by breaking it into the component
parts. This works for study of computers and cars
but not natural systems.
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Reductionist science is...at the root of the
growing ecological crisis, because it entails
a transformation of nature such that the
processes, regularities and regenerative capacity
of nature are destroyed.
Vandana Shiva, 1988
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mechanistic, dualistic,
rationalist, objectivist,
and reductivist
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Clash of paradigmsDominant worldview as flawed, dysfunctional
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Mechanism
Objectivist
Reductionist, dualistic
Reductive
Ecological
Participative Holistic, integrative
Systemic
Stephen Sterling, 2009
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Crises of Perception
reductionist
objective
empirical
value driven
transdisciplinary
participatory
systemic
mechanical
wholistic
ecological
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Seeing differently
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Put simply, the case against the dominant
Western worldview is that it is no longer
constitutes an adequate model of reality -
particularly ecological reality. The map is wrong,
and moreover, we commonly confuse the map
(worldview) for the territory (reality).
Sterling, 1993
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70s - Meadows, Bateson
80s - Capra, Harman, Clark
90s - Orr, Laszlo, Hawkins, Kortean, Berman+
00s - Sterling, 100s+
5. Development
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Problems as symptoms of systemic failure, rather than random errors requiring fixes.
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Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009
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What we already ‘know’ frames what we see,
and what we see frames what we understand.
The things we make are an extension of the
manner in which we think.
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6. Practicefootprinting
lifecyle analysis
cradle to cradle
One Planet Living
biomimicry
embodied energy
rebound effect
energy descent
general systems
theory
wicked problems
tipping points
resilience
technology lock-in
carrying capacity
dematerialisation
ecosystem services
externality costs
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Values lead to what we design
& designers subconsiously embed values in to
what we make.
But our value system presently does not
acknowledge our dependence on ecological
support systems.
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Some lessons from ecological systems for
design of human systems.
1. Diversity
2. Feedbacks
3. Resilience
4. Non-linear thresholds
5. Emergence
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How? Transformational LearningThe value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice based design work.
7. Learning
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Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, SkillsA: SEEING (Perception)
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Action)The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
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A sufficient and whole learning response -
at personal, organisational and social levels -
requires shifts in the three interrelated areas of
human knowing and experience:
perception (Seeing – affective dimension)
conception (Knowing – cognitive dimension)
action (Doing – intentional dimension)
Stephen Sterling, 2009
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10 Assumptions of Reductionist Thinking
1 ‘To every problem, there’s a solution’
2 ‘We can understand something by breaking it down into its component parts’
3 ‘The whole (of something) is no more than the sum of its parts’
4 ‘Most processes are linear’
5 ‘Most issues and events are can be understood by examining the components.
6 ‘It is acceptable to draw your circle of attention or concern quite tightly, as in ”that’s not my concern’
7 ‘We can define or value something by distinguishing it from what it is not, or from its opposite’
8 ‘Objectivity is both possible and necessary to understand issues‘
9 ‘We can understand things best through a rational response. Any other approach is irrational’
10 ‘If we know what the state of something is now, we can usually predict future outcomes’
Stephen Sterling 2009
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10 Assumptions of Reductionist Thinking
•problem-solving
• analysis
• reductionism
• cause-effect
• atomism
•narrow boundaries
•objectivism
•dualism
• rationalism
•determinism
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An emerging ecological (relational/systemic)
paradigm presents a sane and hopeful
evolutionary pathway, necessary to the
conditions we now face, with the power
to transcend the disintegrative effects of
modernism and the disempowering relativism of
deconstructive postmodernism.
Stephen Sterling, 2009
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Problem-solvingAnalysis Reductionism Closed cause-effectAtomism/segregativeNarrow boundaries Objectivism Dualism Rationalism Determinism
Reframing /alleviationSynthesis Holism Multiple influencesIntegrative Extension of boundariesCritical subjectivity Pluralism / dualityRational / non-rational Uncertainty, ambiguity
To simplify, two ways of thinking...
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Metaphor
Epistemology
Ontology
Methodology
Mechanism
Objectivist
Reductionist, dualistic
Reductive
Ecology/living systems
Participative
Holistic, integrative
Systemic
Key cultural worldviews
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Educationalparadigm
Positivist Interpretivist;Constructivist
Critical; radical
Poststructural Participative
Role of educator
Instruction Facilitation Critical pedagogytransformative
Deconstruct- ion
Mediation, mentoring/ ‘invitational’
Curriculum Prescribed Constructivist; Issues based Pluralist Indicative, emergent
Pedagogy Delivery Learner centeredTransactional
Critical pedagogy
Deconstructive Co-inquiry
Educational paradigm
Cultural worldview/metaphorMechanistic..............modernist…………….Postmodern….........Ecological…
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Our machines, our value systems, our educational systems will all have to be informed by (the) switch, from the machine age when we tried to design schools to be like factories, to an ecological age, when we want to design schools, and families and social institutions in terms of maintaining the quality of life not just for our species, but for the whole planet. Mary Catherine Bateson, 1997
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Last thoughts...
‘It is better to do the right thing wrongly, than
the wrong thing better and better…’
Russell Ackoff
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We can’t solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein
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www.eco-labs.orghttp://teach-in.ning.com
ECOLOGICAL
SOCIALECONOMIC
Further Reading:
Capra, Fritjof. 2002. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo, 2003.
Orr, David. Ecological Literacy. Albany: State of New York Press, 1992.
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003