This video program focuses on four rivers: the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Jordan, and the Mekong. Each locale serves as an example of what can happen when human beings tamper with the natural system of a river. Without thoughtful planning, the consequences can be disastrous,, but when communities work together, a balance can be achieved between…

Describes the development and implementation of an interdisciplinary field course in Costa Rica focused on sustainable development. The semester-long curriculum integrated sociology, political economy, and agricultural ecology. The curriculum was empirically based and involved faculty members and students working collaboratively on different…

Summarizes a wealth of statistical information concerning the economic development and debt for a number of developing nations. Includes statistics on the gross national product growth of Cote d'lvoire, Guatemala, Malaysia, Korea, Colombia, and Nigeria, as well as, the gross domestic product growth and debt service for Latin America, Africa, and…

Describes the administrative framework of Sweden's government, most notably its Environmental Protection Agency, and explains how it shaped Sweden's national environmental education program. Legislation supports rights to basic information on environmental issues. Such underlying values have been incorporated into the new national curriculum.…

Describes the design of the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in British Columbia, including the educational context and design goals. Includes information on architects, consultants, and cost, as well as floor plans and photographs. Discusses how the design for this First Nations school blends aboriginal constructs and…

Outlines ways in which businesses can contribute to sustainable development through core business activities, social investment, and participation in public policy debates. Describes corporate efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean to promote child-friendly companies, provide community access to technology, improve educational quality and…

Argues that teaching for social justice is a viable science-education goal. Claims that the issues and challenges among science educators in Western and non-Western cultures are more similar than different, and that it is incumbent upon all cultures to contribute in meaningful ways to the development and environmental sustainability of our global…

Describes the processes whereby environmental policies are created and disseminated in China and points to some of the issues facing western educators who wish to work with Chinese colleagues in advancing global sustainability. (Author/PVD)

In 1990, UBC signed the Talloires Declaration--an international commitment to environmental sustainability in higher education. In 1997, the University of British Columbia (UBC) adopted a Sustainable Development Policy stating the campus will adhere to sustainable practices in all of its actions and mandates and that all students will be educated…

The maximization of productivity and labor efficiency has been a hallmark of the American agriculture and food system. The result of these twin processes is an industrial, concentrated, and consolidated provisioning system that produces cheap and plentiful food. Many view this model as a panacea for providing food to a modern industrial workforce,…

The boundaries that define a discrete collection of intellectual or informational resources have never been precise or immutable. With the proliferation of born-digital and digitized analog materials, these boundaries are becoming even less well defined. Supporting users' information needs in the current digital environment requires redefining the…

The main idea this article develops is the conceptual chaos, methodological tensions and epistemological conflicts that are being experienced in the field of environmental education as a result of the uncertainty generated by some institutions and international organisms. The authors' perspective starts from the idea that too many expectations…

Despite the mainstream technological approach of science in academic curricula, with its focus on specialisation, the Dutch history of higher education is an interesting example of an alternative development. The Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam has declared in its mission statement a pedagogical ideal of "broad academic education",…

What system does a university need to optimise its progress to sustainability? Discusses the gradation of approaches possible for a university as it strives to improve its environmental performance. Argues that an environmental policy plus mechanisms for its implementation can be adequate, and endorsement of a single formal EMS need not be…

Purpose: To distinguish sustainable development education from environmental education and stress the importance of problem-based interdisciplinary learning to sustainable development education. Design/methodology/approach: A range of published works relating to sustainable development education are critiqued, an introduction to complexity theory…