Prioritizing Sustainability Education: A Comprehensive Approach

by Joan Armon (Editor), Stephen Scoffham (Editor), Chara Armon (Editor)

Prioritizing Sustainability Education presents theory-to-practice essays and case studies by educators from six countries who elucidate dynamic approaches to sustainability education. Too often, students graduate with exploitative, consumer-driven orientations toward ecosystems and are unprepared to confront the urgent challenges presented by environmental degradation. Educators are prioritizing sustainability-oriented courses and programs that cultivate students’ knowledge, skills, and values and contextualize them within relational connections to local and global ecosystems. Little has yet been written, however, about the comprehensive sustainability education that educators are currently designing and implementing, often across or at the edges of disciplinary boundaries.


The approaches described in this book expand beyond conventional emphases on developing students’ attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors by thinking and talking about ecosystems to additionally engaging students with ecosystems in sensory, affective, psychological, and cognitive dimensions, as well as imaginative, spiritual, or existential dimensions that guide environmental care and regeneration.


This book supports educators and graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in the humanities, social sciences, environmental studies, environmental sciences, and professional programs in considering how to reorient their fields toward relational sustainability perspectives and practices

Review
"Increasingly visible through the enveloping fog of political turmoil, economic uncertainty, social unrest and ecological decline is a new energy; one that is challenging old assumptions, is life-affirming, regenerative and ecologically passionate. It is profoundly aware relationally, and determinedly hopeful that humanity can yet win a safe and secure future for people and nature. In this endeavor, the vision and practice of education is being widely reclaimed, reconceived, and re-purposed by communities of educators and learners motivated to make a decisive and positive difference. Prioritizing Sustainability Education is part of this vital movement, and will offer any educator the knowledge, skills and spirit to join this critically important and timely wave of renewal." ― Stephen Sterling, Professor Emeritus of Sustainability Education, University of Plymouth, UK

"Prioritizing Sustainability Education is sure to become one of the most important educational treatises for our time. The authors present a paradigm that energizes development of an Indigenous consciousness of a place and grounds "indigeneity" as a social construct. They explore challenges, indigeneity, spirit of place, students’ voices, re-enchantment, and urgency as a context for creating a truly comprehensive sustainable educational process that heals, liberates, communalizes, crosses boundaries, and sustains both people and environment by creating new stories, guiding children and communities, espousing an ethic of care, toward creating a life flourishing consciousness and that is adaptive, regenerative and resilient!" – Gregory Cajete, Ph.D., (Santa Clara Pueblo), Director of Native American Studies and Associate Professor in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio-cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico

"Humane sustainability education that rewilds hearts and heads is sorely needed. Prioritizing Sustainability Education could well be a game-changer for creating an ethic of care, resilience, and optimistic activism. This book belongs in classrooms worldwide." ― Marc Bekoff, PhD author of Rewilding Our Hearts and co-author of The Animals' Agenda

"This book uplifts mind, heart, and soul. It offers the possibility and necessity for a profound shift in sustainability education, unveiling new opportunities for hope. It is a grounded and visionary book, mapping the terrain that lies ahead and the wisdom and skills needed to transform these unsustainable times." ― David Hicks, former Professor, School of Education, Bath Spa University, UK

"If you want a holistic and pragmatic approach to the concept of sustainability education, this book is a solid choice. The authors are diverse, skilled, and respected. They infuse the dimensions of comprehensive sustainability education with global developments and offer practical pathways for the transformation of minds and practice." ― Akpezi Ogbuigwe, Former Head, Environmental Education & Training, UNEP; Adviser, UNU-RCE Africa; Member, Group of Experts in SDGs and Higher Education (GUNi)

"Prioritizing Sustainability Education tempers theoretical knowledge with practical realities while looking at global concerns related to the sustainable future of the planet,. It offers perspectives from different parts of the world, and attempts to address the nearly elusive essence of what is attempted to be defined by 'sustainable development'. This book throws abundant light on hard facts often hidden by a euphoristic trust in technology or a childlike refusal to accept the unsavoury facts related the environmental crisis we are relentlessly moving towards." – Dr Lal C A, Professor of English, School of Distance Education , University of Kerala

About the Author
Joan Armon is Professor of Education at Regis University, USA.

Stephen Scoffham is Visiting Reader in Sustainability and Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

Chara Armon is Lawrence C. Gallen Fellow in the Humanities and Assistant Professor at Villanova University, USA.