This formative article on indigenous heritage and cultural phenology informs environment and sustainability education as reflexive processes of heritage-mediated, deliberative learning to change together. It shows how transformative learning can be informed by engaging with biocultural heritage that has shaped the southern African biomes as living landscapes. Drawing on historical and agroecological evidence, the article illustrates how local practices have shaped environments that support sustainable livelihoods and community well-being. It reviews evidence of how expanding agroecology practices successively ‘tamed’ the land, making village surroundings safe, healthy and productive. The heritage practices examined show how colonial Arcadian ideals, together with the empirical traditions of the natural sciences, shaped Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) as primarily a learner-led problem-solving approach. The study suggests that a broader view of learning and biocultural change can help reframe ESD as a more reflexive critical process, informed by biocultural heritage and connected to school disciplinary subjects knowledge.
This article presents a practice-based case study of embedding sustainability within a Bachelor of Arts course through a hybrid ‘One-to-many/Many-to-one’ pedagogy. Sustainability was positioned both as a cross-cutting theme within majors and as a shared problem space for interdisciplinary dialogue. Drawing on a compulsory sustainability unit at a regional Australian university, we analysed student forums and reflective essays to examine two dimensions: how majors aligned their disciplinary practices with selected SDGs and how sustainability competencies emerged through reflective and experiential pedagogies. Distinctive disciplinary strengths were evident: some majors emphasized systems and anticipatory reasoning, others normative critique and cultural analysis, and still others strategic, creative or collaborative practices. Collectively, these complementary profiles enriched sustainability literacy. The study contributes by showing how arts courses advance sustainability education, by operationalizing competency-based proximity coding to map disciplinary strengths and by aligning SDG engagement with competency development as a transferable scaffold for curriculum design.
The practical and skills-focused learning emphasized across STEM education tends to overlook the importance of connectivity and engagement with community stakeholders—this is problematic given these relationships are at the core of sustainable development. STEM education is crucial for advancing sustainability mindsets, yet its focus is often exclusively on only two of the three pillars: economic and environmental. There is a pressing need to raise awareness and expand STEM education to comprehensively address the third pillar, social sustainability. This inquiry-based case study responds to this sustainability deficit, paying particular attention to how education for sustainable development (ESD) can be bolstered within existing coursework and programmes. A primary aim of this research is to identify student knowledge gaps in social, community-focused sustainability knowledge. Qualitative, multidisciplinary analysis of student experiences offers insight into identifying best practices in the development of comprehensive and replicable ESD curricula that emphasizes social consciousness and accountability, ultimately preparing students to be effective practitioners in their STEM fields. Rather than a comprehensive report of data, this article serves as a call to action for other STEM programmes to integrate ESD-centred learning, promoting a holistic educational experience that fosters sustainable development and community well-being.
Heatwaves are increasing in duration and frequency as a result of anthropogenic climate change. Extreme heat has an impact on health and education, even in cooler climates, but little is known about how UK schools are adapting. The study draws on a survey of publicly available policies from 85 schools and survey responses from staff in 179 schools to understand the psychological and situational barriers and enablers to extreme heat adaptation. We find that adaptation is hindered by perceptions of threat, knowledge of actions that can be taken, agency of school staff linked to leadership and policy, and the quality of the school estate and infrastructure. We argue that climate adaptation education for school leaders is needed to raise an awareness of extreme heat risks and protective actions, to develop policies with and for communities, and to advocate for political actions to reduce vulnerability to climate change and bring about a more sustainable school sector.
This study investigates the scholarship of sustainability teaching and learning (SoSTL) in higher education (HE), focusing on the disciplinary integration of Education for Sustainable Development (EfSD) at the module level. Employing a narrative review of 33 case studies published between 2017 and 2023, the research explores disciplinary patterns using Biglan’s classification of academic fields. Results reveal a dominant presence of SoSTL in applied disciplines ( n = 32), particularly in business, education and engineering, with minimal representation in pure disciplines ( n = 1). The case studies exhibit an even distribution between sustainability-focused ( n = 17) and sustainability-inclusive ( n = 16) modules, highlighting diverse pedagogical approaches. General education interventions were fewer ( n = 6) than discipline-specific ones ( n = 27), underscoring the structural challenges of interdisciplinarity in HE. These findings illuminate gaps in disciplinary SoSTL engagement and emphasize the need for expanded scholarship across pure disciplines to foster comprehensive EfSD integration and equip students to address global sustainability challenges effectively.
