sustainability science education dr robert dyball fenner school of environment and society
TRANSCRIPT
Sustainability Science Education
Dr Robert Dyball
Fenner School of Environment and Society
Sustainability Science at ANU
Long history of teaching and research in “Sustainability Science”Founded Human Ecology Program in 1973 - an interdisciplinary study of human-environment systems to overcome “excessive compartmentalization” of knowledge in favour of a “comprehensive” approachResponsible for the “Hong Kong Project” – one of the first studies of “urban metabolism”
Hong Kong Project team c 1980
Boyden et al, 1981
Key Skills for Ecological Literacy
To help students understand complex human-environment systems and their problems (“wicked problems”)
To make learning personally meaningful to students in their everyday lives with a focus on solutions to problems
To empower students to understand not just the problems of today but future problems that they face
To encourage critical reflection on social values and people’s choices, and the possibility of other ways of “living well”
Throughout, to do this by research led learning
Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies (Sustainability)
Sustainability Science requires interdisciplinary approaches.This requires coherent degree structures that allow students to study across traditional disciplinary divides.
Experiential learning - lots of fieldwork!
Field classes in the Australian Snowy Mountains
Experiential learning at home – the Campus as Classroom
“The sustainable campus can serve as both an experiment in progress and an ideal tool for educating future generations” (ICSS Sapporo declaration, pt 8).
Students work on real projects on campus with Facilities Management.
Campus management adopts student reports and puts their findings into practice.
Both students and management benefit.
Common Ground
International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU)
Regional partners are University of Tokyo, Peking University and National University of Singapore
IARU Sustainability Science project focuses on Sustainable Cities and Human Wellbeing
Global interdependencies of food systems - how life styles in each country depend on each other
Research findings are updated into classroom teaching and learning
From IARU “Food Flows” project. Overseas land areas demanded by Tokyo domestic wheat consumption (to scale)
IARU Global Summer Schools
IARU student exchange
Exposes students to cutting edge research around the globe
Puts students from different cultural background together in intensive class settings
Exposure to cultural differences helps students to imagine they might live differently and more sustainably
IARU member students on field study in Copenhagen
Prospects of web-based learning collaborations
Student exchange is desirable, but expensive
Web offers prospect of collaboration without travel
ANU has been trialling web-based Sustainability Science classes
Opens exciting prospects for greater regional and international collaboration
From ANU – National University of Singapore joint course trial
