This paper discusses the conceptual foundations for "Education for Sustainable Patterns of Living," the mission of the Center for Ecoliteracy in California. It offers an operational definition of ecological sustainability, and proposes study of living systems as a framework for understanding ecology. It considers key concepts for…

Purpose: This paper aims to assess the impact and value of non-binding agreements or declarations in achieving sustainability in universities. Design/methodology/approach: A case study of Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University is presented, analysing the reasons for lack of progress towards sustainability and evaluating best…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyse an initiative to provide learners on "career-based" programmes with opportunities to reflect upon their values within the context of sustainability. Design/methodology/approach: An international literature review relating values and behaviour to the sustainability agenda led to the development of…

What factors encourage and sustain enduring curriculum change at a typical North American university? Like many faculty members and groups working in teaching and learning centers, the authors have been concerned with understanding how curriculum change takes place in a university. Their group, the Centre for Leadership in Learning at McMaster…

This paper looks at the context in which preparations are under way for CONFINTEA VI, the next UNESCO International Conference on Adult Education. The last CONFINTEA was in 1997, and ever since, a series of international conferences and initiatives dealing with adult and continuing, non-formal and out-of-school education, literacy and basic…

Teaching staff, designing conventional courses in higher education, must make decisions about selecting content and activities to engage students in learning. When the Internet is chosen as the principal delivery vehicle it presents particular challenges for the design of active learning. Further challenges are added when working with a complex,…

This report evaluates how effectively Scotland's colleges have embraced and taken forward sustainability in the context of the Scottish Government's commitment to improve Scotland's natural and built environment and the sustainable use and enjoyment of it. "Greener Scotland" is one of the five strategic objectives that form part of the…

This case study describes a 20-year journey of educational transformation from 1985 to 2005 in a bellwether, or highly developed, instance of one school, family, and community partnership--the Kileely Community Project--situated in a large social housing project in Limerick City in the Midwestern region of the Republic of Ireland. The study is a…

One of the greatest challenges of any K-12 teacher education program is providing pre-service teachers opportunities to work with students who are culturally and linguistically different from themselves. Despite best efforts of selecting texts and facilitating discussions, new teachers recently interviewed report that coursework just did not help…

Although Nigeria understands the indispensability of English in its human and material development, sustainable development has continued to elude it because of its failure to develop bi-literacy in English and its Mother Tongues (MTs). The products of its school system cannot, with fluency, read and write in both. Examining why inter/intra…

This paper identifies some of the pedagogical benefits of an active learning course delivery complemented by an online discussion forum to teach sustainability by evaluating the case of a geography master's course. The potential benefits and some challenges of an active learning course delivery to teach sustainability in geography and related…

Purpose: Higher education has a key role and responsibility in creating change and addressing issues of fundamental human concern such as inequality and social justice, globalisation and development, environmental protection and sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to describe how RCE-Ireland, established in September 2007, aims to develop…

Community Sustainability is a supplementary environmental education mini-curriculum for grades 9-12 designed to provide students with information about the emerging community sustainability movement as well as environmental action skills that will facilitate their participation. It contains interdisciplinary lessons that provide students with…

This issue of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Journal focuses on environmental education and its role in building a sustainable future. Articles include: (1) "Why Environmental Education?" (Carol M. Browner); (2) "EPA's Environmental Education Program" (Diane Berger); (3) "Preparing for the Next Century"…

This paper begins by providing a thorough history and review of the diffusion of innovations research tradition. It then focuses on undesirable, indirect, and unanticipated consequences of innovations based on the dominant paradigm of development. In the case of high-input agriculture, the consequences have affected the quality of the environment…