This book is an introduction to the long history of human learning, the environment and sustainable development -- about our struggles with the natural world: first for survival, then for dominance, currently for self-preservation, and in future perhaps, even for long-term, mutually beneficial co-existence. It charts the long arc of…

This article explores how STEM subjects can enable students to learn about the key environmental issues that we face, using the National Association for Environmental Education's recent teacher handbooks about 'The Environmental Curriculum' and details of the Sustainable Development Goals to help do this through a mix of input and small-group…

A number of recent surveys of public opinion claim that there is now widespread acceptance of the need for sustainable development, and that the general public, through its social and consumer activity is already successfully engaged. However, in all this, the focus has primarily been on individual and family behaviours such as recycling and…

This article explores the development of the UK Government's Sustainable Schools Initiative and examines the contribution that science teaching can make to this. Drawing on recent research in schools and on development work in initial teacher education, the article argues that, in the absence of policy that enables schools to bring subject areas…

This essay explores a central question for all those involved in education and sustainability (ESD): What are you really most interested in: educational or social outcomes--what learners learn, or what they do? Although this is hardly a new question, the paper argues that it is one that needs to be emphasised at this time when we see a tightening…

This paper provides a commentary on education for sustainable development (ESD) within higher education (HE) in England, set against the wider international and European background. The recent history of attempts to clarify ESD and its implications for higher education institutions is outlined, and some of the tensions between a developing agenda…

In response to the various calls for sustainable development, a range of activities has been initiated by central and local government, business, NGOs and other institutions. In this paper, the authors focus on the important learning context of higher education. They review the agenda established at Rio and, through a critical examination of…

Over the last thirty years, the idea of sustainable development has come to be seen in policy circles across the globe as a necessary and urgent response to a range of social and environmental issues that threaten both the integrity of the biosphere, and human wellbeing. Increasingly, education, and particularly higher education, is seen to have a…

Sustainable development can remain a regulative ideal for environmental educators with the acknowledgement that it has no absolute legitimation and that human reflexivity remains capable of reworking the cultural traditions that have shaped it. Claims that the quest for holism remains one voice in a continuing dialogue about the environment and…

Whether we view sustainable development as our greatest challenge or a subversive litany, every phase of education is now being urged to declare its support for education for sustainable development (ESD). In this paper, we explore the ideas behind ESD and, building on work by Foster and by Scott and Gough, we argue that it is necessary now to…

This paper discusses a proposal for an international research initiative [DREAMS-Direct Research in Education And environmental Management in Schools] which aims to develop an indicative methodology for evaluating the contribution of environmental management systems to the 'implementation of sustainable development' in schools. The research…

Advances a possible theoretical approach to education for sustainable tourism and describes a small-scale research project based on this approach. Seeks to integrate education for sustainable tourism into an established management curriculum using an innovative technique based on the idea of an adaptive concept. (Author/CCM)

This paper examines the inter-relationships between "education" and "sustainable development" as these are played out in the political arena. Each of these two important areas of policy is prioritized by the UK government: education for over a 150 years, but emphatically so since 1997; sustainable development since at least…

Describes an environmental-education research project in North Borneo that takes as a given that different social actors begin with different perceptions of environmental problems based upon different rationalities. Using an innovative educational mechanism called the adaptive concept, an intervention was designed, tested, and evaluated. Contains…