ABSTRACT
Sustainability education is fundamentally systemic and transdisciplinary, placing emphasis on the linkages and interconnectedness between disciplines to create emergent ideas which can address our urgent sustainability challenges. Its measure of success, progress towards sustainability, requires education that extends beyond the cognitive domain to engage students’ ‘head, heart and hands’. This chapter argues that, in contrast, most modern higher education is fundamentally reductionist, arranging learning within discrete modules and disciplines and rewarding students’ cognitive performance.
Whilst there are frequent calls in the literature and from global bodies for a fundamental redesign of and in education to address these requirements, the author can see little evidence that this is happening. With sustainability an ever-diminishing prospect, this is a time-critical issue. Taking a pragmatic view, this chapter focuses on what can be done to deliver an educational experience which facilitates the development of knowledgeable and responsible global citizens within the existing educational paradigm.
Using a systematic functional semiotic framework, a number of the key distinctive features of the course are discussed, including its curriculum and learning styles. It also reflects on the conceptual and practical successes and challenges of the course, both to the individual learner and to the university of its operation.
