Integrating Culture as a Cornerstone of Success in Sustainability Education: A Case Study, Youth Allies for Sustainability Leadership Program, Earth Care, Santa Fe, NM
Environmental sustainability cannot be separated from social justice. Christina Selby presents a compelling case study of sustainability work grounded in cultural democracy, or processes that involve all groups in community decision-making. In the Youth Allies for Sustainability Leadership Program, young residents of Santa Fe, New Mexico, address ecological integrity through intercultural healing, relationship-building, and advocacy. Selby grounds her case in the broader theoretical work of eco-justice and transformative education. She highlights the urgent need to further integrate the defense of cultural integrity with the protection and restoration of ecological balance and economic vitality. This case study is a shining model...
Compost, Blossom, Metamorph, Hurricane – Complexity and Emergent Education Design: Regenerative Strategies for Transformational Learning and Innovation
This work proposes a novel theoretical framework for sustainability education and explores four possible applications of the framework. Insights from complexity and complexity education elide with patterns from nature to birth four patterns of regenerative, emergent education. In this work I explore these four natural systems models of emergence and apply them to education. For [...]...
Trash Talk: A case study of waste analysis at Pomona College
In this well-formulated case study, Miller and Close show us how student involvement and action through a group independent study course led to sophisticated analysis and real change in the handling of waste at Pomona College. They make a good case for student analysis to have equaled or better what experts might have done, with the added benefit of giving students an impactful, real-life experience with practical solutions to sustainability education problems. ...
Teaching for Transformation: (Re)Designing sustainability courses
If educators are to effectively prepare learners with the knowledge, skills, and values they will need for creating more sustainable places and communities, a transition must be made from transmissive teaching models to transformative learning processes. But how can courses be designed or redesigned so that they create opportunities for transformational sustainability learning, and how [...]...
Sustainability and Economics 101: A Primer for Elementary Educators
Susan Santone simply and elegantly tells us how sustainability, or ecological, economics can be made real for K-12 education. She shows us how easy it is to bring the very real, and fundamental, conceptual breakthroughs offered by sustainability economics to a grade-school curriculum through simple applicable exercises that children will easily relate to. ...
Joanne Carney, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Woodring College of Education at Western Washington University. She teaches in the Elementary Education Department and the Instructional Technology Program. Her research interests include teacher education and professional development, with a focus on preparing teachers to teach for sustainability and for the integration of technology into instruction. 
