Call to set new HE benchmarks in sustainability education – University World News

GLOBAL

Amidst the ever-changing and increasingly complex challenges facing the planet and humanity there is a growing need to educate the next generation of environmental stewards and leaders who are global citizens with sustainability mindsets.

A round table discussion attended by student representatives from the Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education (YEAH) Network and Young Ambassadors for Climate Science (YACS), held on the 10 December at the Conference of Parties in Dubai shared crucial information on sustainability studies focused on educational institutions as well as insights on ways universities could set the benchmark for sustainability education and climate action.

The event was themed, “Empowering youth engagement in climate action, solutions, and policy addressing global challenges”.

Professor Diane Husic, dean at the Center for Scholarship, Research and Creative Endeavors and the director of Environmental Sciences and Studies programmes at Moravian University in the United States. who hosted the session highlighted that educational institutions including universities, colleges and other academic organisations had a major responsibility in modelling for society, good sustainability practices including lowering carbon emissions and transforming climate information into action.

In her opening remarks she cited a number of studies linking climate change to a wide variety of global issues – the World Health Organization and the Lancet medical journal had produced annual reports showing these linkages before COP – urging for more concerted efforts towards climate education to empower future workforces.

“Universities have come a long way in helping to address global environmental challenges, developing their sustainability programmes whether that’s in the curriculum or campus operations,” she said.

“Universities are also highly focused on research and technology to help address some of these challenges, these are noteworthy efforts but do they give the students what they need and want, which are the skills to solve the problems and create resilient communities either locally or beyond?” she asked.

A 2020 survey from the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations found that climate change was taught in only 15% of the curricula in the US and often the climate change teaching activities were led by students not by the faculty.

Likewise, a study conducted by the nursing programme at the University of Pennsylvania in 2018 found that only one programme in the United States at that time included climate change in the curriculum for nurses and almost none for emergency medical technicians or EMTs that would be your first responders.

“Our education institutions recognise the degree of climate grief or eco-anxiety among our youths are topics of climate change and sustainable development that must be taught across the curriculum,” said Husic.

Gaps in sustainable education underlined

Numerous surveys highlighted throughout the discussion placed climate change near or at the top of some of the most pressing concerns for youth, yet gaps were identified as primary and secondary schools were failing to fully equip students with the foundational knowledge to prepare them for higher education.

A 2023 survey from Ernest and Young Junior Achievement concluded that “young people look to schools to prioritise sustainability education and update the curriculum. Often enough to capture current trends and use hands-on learning methods that focus on skills acquisition as much as knowledge acquisitions”.

Another 2023 global survey by Junior Achievement Worldwide ,which covered 1,200 respondents in 72 countries, showed that Generation Z (people born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s) receive their sustainability knowledge predominantly from social media, while educational institutions and educators contributed only 15%.

The survey revealed that Gen Alpha (born in the 21st century) and Gen Z say they want more sustainability education from educational institutions and educators and both groups agreed that “education plays a critically important role in helping to lead a more sustainable life”.

A study of teachers conducted by the Smithsonian Science Education Center with Gallup found that US educators rank lowest by far – compared to teachers in Brazil, Canada, France and India – in receiving the necessary support to incorporate sustainable development topics into the curriculum.

“They lack time, instructional materials and expertise and I put that back into the colleges and universities because we often prepare teachers and they believe that teaching about sustainability is important.

“So along with mentorship, critical elements of training are needed to prepare the interdisciplinary workforce including experiential learning in areas of science communication, leadership across disciplines and opportunities to put all that knowledge into action,” Husic stated.

The role of education networks, centres

Besides amplifying youth voices globally, educational networks such as YEAH, YACS and the Smithsonian Science Center, were applauded for serving as catalysts for change through broad-based outreach, distilling scientific content, and research across a wide range of pressing climate and sustainability topics.

The YEAH Network, for example, brings together students from different universities globally, with a goal to broaden and diversify the talent pool of future climate leaders.

Through the network, students are immersed in collaborative climate change learning and undertake team-based projects across a range of disciplines and perspectives including biodiversity loss to climate shift, culminating in participation at the COP Sustainable Development Solutions Network which is a global initiative in the United Nations.

Perspectives from students

A panel of masters and PhD students from US institutions including Moravian University, Colorado State University, Boston University, Colorado College, University of Connecticut, and Monash University in Australia, shared their current climate and sustainability projects.

They also discussed how the knowledge gained through college educational experience is translating to action, within the campus or local communities.

Alison Ludlow, a student in environmental science and journalism at Moravian University, highlighted the importance of empowering individuals and communities with climate information which creates a collective motivation for diverse groups of people to work toward the larger global goals on climate change.

“There’s a lot of diverse perspectives that should be at the forefront of conversations so that students can understand how different climate policies affect different regions.

“Often-times in academia, our success is measured by Publications and quantity but as someone focused on communications, this overlooks the accessibility of that information that is disseminated into the community,” she said.

“If we don’t understand the information that is being distributed to us through the scientific community, this inhibits us from achieving our collective sustainability goals in society.

“Information is a powerful tool that should be leveraged more in academia, especially in universities. We want to see more engagement and participation among different levels and different disciplines in all of academia, not just higher education,” she said.

Sasha Gilmore, who is pursuing a PhD in the Earth and Environment Department at Boston University shared the impacts of marine inter-terrestrial heat on coastal urban populations particularly those who depend on fisheries to earn a living.

She said they are working on a project with the Climate Leaders Academy where part of the curriculum focuses on sea level rise.

“I am from a coastal area in California also affected by this issue. As part of my studies, we developed a Climate Resource Center and an accompanying phone application that is focused on the vulnerable communities in Boston who lack the resources and knowledge about climate change.

“The resource centre allows for the students to come and exchange knowledge, and the phone application developed through our Innovation Center ensures that in the technological age, students have easy access to those resources,” she said.

Colorado College student Zuraiz Zafar shared his interests in debt sustainability and how it relates to developing countries such as Pakistan as well as a project on clean energy.

“We undertook a project on Louisiana’s clean energy where we interviewed many involved actors and asked about their insights into the State’s dichotomy where on one hand. They have suffered from devastating consequences of climate change such as Hurricane Katrina, but they also have a prevalent and growing fossil fuel industry. So we wanted to get to the bottom of that dichotomy and see what the people of Louisiana thought about it,” he said.