Matching Items (4)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Environmental Education
- Creators: Redman, Aaron
- Creators: Andereck, Kathleen
Description
Businesses, as with other sectors in society, are not yet taking sufficient action towards achieving sustainability. The United Nations recently agreed upon a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which if properly harnessed, provide a framework (so far lacking) for businesses to meaningfully drive transformations to sustainability. This paper proposes to operationalize the SDGs for businesses through a progressive framework for action with three discrete levels: communication, tactical, and strategic. Within the tactical and strategic levels, several innovative approaches are discussed and illustrated. The challenges of design and measurement as well as opportunities for accountability and the social side of Sustainability, together call for transdisciplinary, collective action. This paper demonstrates feasible pathways and approaches for businesses to take corporate social responsibility to the next level and utilize the SDG framework informed by sustainability science to support transformations towards the achievement of sustainability.
ContributorsRedman, Aaron (Author)
Created2018-06-30
Description
The next generation will be better prepared to cope with the daunting sustainability challenges if education for sustainable development is being taught and learned across educational sectors. K-12 school education will play a pivotal role in this process, most prominently, the teachers serving at these schools. While pre-service teachers’ education will contribute to this transition, success will depend on effective professional development in sustainability education to teachers currently in service. Arizona State University has pioneered the development and delivery of such a programme. We present the design principles, the programme, and insights from its initial applications that involved 246 K-12 in-service teachers from across the USA. The evaluation results indicate that due to participation in the programme, sustainability knowledge, perception of self-efficacy, inclusion of sustainability in the classroom, modelling of sustainable behaviours, and linking action to content all increased. We conclude with recommendations for the widespread adopting of the programme.
ContributorsRedman, Erin (Author) / Redman, Aaron (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Author)
Created2018-07-13
Description
The purpose of this case study was to explore the barriers, or constraints, to the integration of field-based environmental education (EE) programs in K-8 public elementary schools in Phoenix, Arizona. Research continues to show that field based EE programs improve student outcomes (Bartosh, Tudor, Ferguson, & Taylor, 2006; Cole, 2007; James and Williams, 2017). Despite the empirical evidence, there appear to be obstacles to integrating field based EE into school curriculum. This study used Hierarchical Leisure Constraints Theory (HLCT) to identify and understand these constraints. There were 22 focus group participants and 13 interviewees from ten different schools and five school districts within the Phoenix area. Looking at the constraints identified by all participants, funding and the availability of transportation play a major role barring the use of field based EE programming. However, when applying HLCT, both of these barriers are structural in nature. This means these are constraints beyond the control of the individual but are negotiable. According to HLCT, you must first understand intrapersonal and interpersonal constraints and the effect they have on overcoming barriers. This study found that perception and prior knowledge emerged as the root of most constraints. In other words, while structural constraints are named as the primary issue in integrating field based EE in public schools, this study concludes from the findings that human nature and human values influence whether teachers and administrators participate in field based programming with their students.
ContributorsCoco, Virginia A (Author) / Andereck, Kathleen (Thesis advisor) / Hultsman, Wendy (Thesis advisor) / Winsor, Brian (Committee member) / Kurz, Alex (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Making significant progress on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) needs change agents equipped with key competencies in sustainability. While thousands of sustainability programs have emerged at various educational levels over the past decade, there is, as of yet, no reliable way to assess if these programs successfully convey key competencies in sustainability. This dissertation contributes to addressing this gap in three ways. First, it reviews the body of work on key competencies in sustainability. Based on broad agreement around five key competencies as well as an emerging set of three, an extended framework is outlined that can be used as unified set of learning objectives across sustainability programs. The next chapter reviews the scholarly work on assessing sustainability competencies. Based on this review, a typology of assessment tools is proposed offering guidance to both educators and researchers. Finally, drawing on experience of the four-year “Educating Future Change Agents” project, the last chapter explores the results from a diverse set of competency assessments in numerous courses. The study appraises assessment practices and results to demonstrate opportunities and challenges in the current state of assessing key competencies in sustainability. The results of this doctoral thesis are expected to make a practical and scholarly contribution to the teaching and learning in sustainability programs, in particular with regards to reliably assessing key competencies in sustainability.
ContributorsRedman, Aaron (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Thesis advisor) / Barth, Matthias (Committee member) / Basile, George (Committee member) / Fischer, Daniel (Committee member) / Mochizuki, Yoko (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020