Sustainable design education is now considered a core issue for industrial/product design courses, however research has shown that the predominant focus tends to be on environmental issues, as social issues are much harder to tackle. Similarly, social issues are rarely considered in industrial practice. If student designers are to become…

In this commentary Matias Laine reviews the vivid paper written by Rob Gray (2013) who discusses his view of how sustainability is positioned within accounting education and how accounting educators can directly approach sustainability in their teaching. Laine notes many of the aspects that Gray considers important reflect the starting point of…

Accounting has been accused of being a cause of unsustainable management, but is also seen as being a means to support corporate sustainability and improvement. In both views the introduction of environmental and sustainability topics in accounting education is widely supported. The main finding from the study by Wynder, Wellner, and Reinhard…

Today, being sustainable means living smart. But to live smart, we need to change our behavior. This article shows how schools and school districts offer great opportunities for teaching students and staff how to live smart, therefore sustainably, all while generating savings that can be used for other, more strategic investments within the school…

Classrooms and their pedagogy have historically been characterised by a disconnection from the community outside, and this trend is particularly problematic for rural schools (Bryden & Boylan, 2004; Corbett, 2006). There is reduced encouragement for teachers to connect classroom and community with the current focus on standardised testing,…

Purpose: The concept of resilience has emerged recently in scientific debate. The aim of this paper is to outline different notions of the term resilience and explore how the concept of resilience can be applied in order to foster the understanding of complex systems in a learning environment. Design/methodology/approach: Characteristics of the…

This paper proposes how the theoretical framework of ecological dynamics can provide an influential model of the learner and the learning process to pre-empt effective behaviour changes. Here we argue that ecological dynamics supports a well-established model of the learner ideally suited to the environmental education context because of its…

Archetypal images in stories and lyrics such as Lehi's Dream in the Book of Mormon, Country Mouse and the City Mouse, and selected Country music lyrics grow from perceptions of social, cultural, and geographical realities. For their purveyors, they likely stem from personal experience as the proverbial Country Mouse in the city and/or from…

The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has experienced rapid growth in the last decade. In addition to educating over 17,000 students annually, UAB is a major research facility and academic healthcare center. Due to growth and expansion, UAB requires more and more water to sustain operations. The central chilled water system serves over…

Facility managers have questions about sustainability. How do an organization's physical facilities--its built environment--and the management of them, influence the sustainability of the organization or institution as a whole? How important is Facility Management (FM) to the overall sustainability profile of an organization? Facility managers…

Many researchers cite living more sustainably as humans' most pressing long- term challenge. Living sustainably can be defined as meeting one's needs without interfering with future generations ability to meet their needs. Engaging students with the social causes and effects of sustainability issues may help to address and create…

Research over the past 30 years has found that effective principals can significantly improve various components of student achievement and learning. In addition, there are few examples of improving student achievement that were not led by an effective principal. Research has also identified the need for the change to be systemic or comprehensive…

The economic and environmental crises that face humanity today require an educational response. This article accepts the proposition that education may play a part in preparing human beings to survive impacts of human-induced climate change for example. However, education, according to some conceptualizations, is also in crisis. It therefore…

Social, economic, and environmental issues facing 21st century societies compel a transformative shift towards sustainability in all spheres of life, including education. The challenges this holds for outdoor education programs and practices is significant. If outdoor education theory and practice is to make a greater contribution to…

Can community and school gardens help people learn to build social resilience to potential food shortages? We seek to address this question through an examination of the ways in which gardens can teach individual and community resiliency in times of emergency, pockets of food insecurity, and the challenges presented by climate change. We focus on…