ESD

Education for Sustainable Development

Cert Ed/Prof Grad May 2023

ESD

• What is sustainable development?

• Embedding ESD in the curriculum

• Green Jobs

Professional Standards (updated 2022)

Promote and embed education for sustainable development (ESD) across learning and working practices.

Open Ended

What 3 words come to mind when you hear 'sustainable development'?

What is sustainable development?

• Sustainable development is not just about the environment, it also encompasses a range of intertwined economic and socio-cultural issues.

• It is development that meets the needs of today without compromising the needs of the future.

• In 2015, the ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ was adopted by all 193 UN member states. At the heart of this agenda are 17 Sustainable Development Goals which are a call to action in a global partnership.

​Reflective activity

Reflect on your work over the last two weeks. Can you see a link between your curriculum and one or more of the goals?

UNESCO, 2019

" ESD empowers learners to take informed decisions and responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability, and a just society for present and future generations, while respecting cultural diversity. It is about lifelong learning and is an integral part of quality education " 

​What attributes do learners need to contribute to a sustainable future?

JAMBOARD

​Activity

​The Sustainable Learner

For our learners to contribute to a sustainable future, they will need to develop sustainable knowledge, skills and behaviours.

This could include:

• Technical knowledge about sustainability and their subject

• The ability to communicate effectively with others

• Demonstrate subject specific skills in the workplace

• Empathy with others

• Drive to create positive change

​Sustainability in qualification and the EIF

Sustainability and ESD is not explicit within many of the systems and frameworks within which our sector operates.

This is starting to change.

Top down drivers are often cited as the most influential, however it is important to note there are other drivers of change.

​Sustainability in qualification specifications.

Reflect on your own qualification specifications. Is there any EXPLICIT ESD content?

Share with your peers.

Adapting your curriculum

• There are multiple opportunities to embed ESD in your curriculum, whether it's formal, informal or subliminal

• Embedding and promoting ESD is about identifying opportunities to develop the attributes identified in the 'sustainable learner'

• There is opportunity through adapting existing curriculum as well as developing transformative curriculum

• It's not just what you teach, it's the way you teach it; make it relevant, explicit with a solutions focus

​Summary

There are opportunities to embed and promote ESD in your curriculum area.

Start with adapting your existing work, build to promote transformational curriculum changes.

It is vital to:

1. Make ESD relevant 2. Make ESD explicit 3. Have a solutions focus.

ESD Activities and Resources

Good ESD practice relies on reliable sources of information

Identifying reliable sources is a critical skill for ESD educators

• UN and government agencies

• Academic institutions

• Well cited research

• Independently funded research

Finding opportunities for ESD in your subject specialism

What is of value that we need

to keep?

What might need modification?

Revise

What, if anything might we

need to abandon?

What new ideas, concepts, principles,

methodologies, working methods,

pedagogies etc. are needed?

Renew

Retain

Reject

ACTIVITY

Share ideas of what you
can retain, revise, reject and/or
renew in your work to enhance
ESD provision.

Start where you are currently at

Education for sustainable development (ESD) in different subject areas - The Education and Training Foundation

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​Exploring ESD in your subject

Get into groups according to subject area.

Explore ways to embed ESD in your teaching practice. Add examples to the Padlet.

Be prepared to share these with the whole group.

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Summary

•Ideally ESD should be delivered as part of their core subject
specialism, rather than as a parallel stand-alone content.

•There are multiple ways to bring ESD meaningfully into different subject
specialisms to develop learners’ knowledge, skills, behaviours and
attributes.

•You don’t need to include all SDGs nor shoehorn ESD into your subject –
it needs to be appropriate as well as relevant, explicit and solutions
focused.

•You are not expected to know everything about sustainable
development. Facilitate discussions (with your learners, colleagues,
and others you work with) and you may learn from them as much as they
do from you.

Staying up to date with current practice and innovation

Dual professionalism describes how FE and training sector educators are
experts in:
•their industry/occupation/subject and

•their teaching/pedagogical practice.

In order to maintain their dual professionalism, educators regularly update
their knowledge and upskill themselves.

There are multiple opportunities available to help ensure educators stay
up-to-date with current practice and innovation relating to sustainability.

Open Ended

How do you stay up to date with current practice and innovation that is relevant to your work?

Opportunities

Quick wins

•Regularly read the trade
magazine(s) for the
industry sector you teach.

•Maintain relevant
professional
memberships.

•Follow the social media
accounts of key
sustainability influencers
and thought leaders in the
industry sector you teach.

Sustained activities

•Join or establish a
community of practice
(CoP)

•Establish a
coaching/mentoring
relationship with an
industry professional and
meet for coffee once a
term to discuss their work
and your learners.

•Ensure that your learners
report back on their
industry experience.

Annual or biannual

events

•Undertake a placement.

•Attend an annual
conference or event
hosted by an industry
professional or trade
body.

•Take a training course
on a new piece of
software, technique or
methodology used in your
industry.

Practitioner ESD Community

#SustainFE

Example topics
- Embedding within the curriculum
- Training provision
- Sharing of good practice on ESD
- Research
- Project examples

There is an increasing number of subject-specialist sustainability
organisations

Jobs

Preparing

our

5million+

learners for
their futures

Developing
the ‘green

jobs’

workforce

Ensuring a

‘just

transition’

EDUCATION & TRAINING FOUNDATION

Green jobs

Green jobs will not be
niche. We anticipate that
sustainability and
climate change will
touch every career.

Department for Education, 2022

Green jobs: within Yorkshire and the Humber

Green Jobs Barometer

Spend 10 minutes looking at data for your region.

Discuss in your groups:

What stands out? What information will be useful for the future?

Reflect on how this could inform your organisation's approach to ESD.

Green Jobs Barometer - PwC UK

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Skills for green jobs

Aimed at fulfilling the
requirements of green jobs
and supporting the transition
to a low-carbon green
economy

Green life skills

Cross-cutting skills that serve
both technical, instrumental,
and adaptive, transformative
ends

Skills for a Green
Transformation

Adaptive skills aimed at
transforming unjust social and
economic structures

Instrumental

Transformative

Specific capacities

Generic capacities

Transformative capacities

Skills for green jobs
Aimed at fulfilling the requirements of
green jobs and supporting the transition
to a low-carbon green economy

Green life skills
Cross-cutting skills that serve both
technical, instrumental, and adaptive,
transformative ends

Skills for a Green Transformation
Adaptive skills aimed at transforming
unjust social and economic structures

Instrumental

Transformative

Specific capacities:
•Business skills

•Data analysis

•Engineering

•Entrepreneurship

•Environmental and ecosystem
management

•Environmental knowledge and awareness

•Finance skills

•Gender empowerment skills

•ICT skills

•Innovation skills

•Marketing skills

•Project management

•Research skills

•Sales skills

•Science skills

•Technological skills

Generic capacities:
•Adaptability

•Collaboration

•Collaborative thinking

•Communication

•Coping with emotions

•Coping with uncertainty

•Creativity

•Critical thinking and reasoning

•Decision making

•Empathy

•Flexibility

•Growth mindset

•Higher order thinking skills

•Interpersonal competence

•Leadership

•Negotiation

•Networking

•Open-mindedness

•Participatory skills

Transformative capacities:
•Ability to analyse unequal systems of
power

•Coalition building

•Collective action

•Disruptive vs. normative thinking

•Environmental stewardship

•Future and anticipatory thinking

•Integrative thinking

•Interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary
thinking

•Political agency, activism

•Reflexivity

•Respecting diverse viewpoints

•Solidarity

•Systems Thinking

•Trans-cultural, trans-spatial, trans-
temporal mindsets

•Valuing traditional and indigenous
knowledge

•Working within complexity

•Problem- solving

•Resilience

•Strategic thinking

•Teamwork

190

Traditional employability skills are still vital

Learners are often graduating with great distinction in their subject area but
still lacking the basics in terms of workplace readiness and life
preparedness:
• effective communication
• understanding broader contexts
• problem solving
• managing a project in a structured way
• presenting information.

This is reported by both learners and employers.

Sustainability knowledge skills and behaviours in
occupational standards

Different subject areas have different (positive and negative) impacts on
sustainability – ESD content should be proportional to these impacts.

Sustainability knowledge skills and behaviours in occupational
standards

e.g.

•

hair professional

•

adult care

worker

•

camera prep

technician

•

marketing

assistant

•

florist

e.g.

•

transport planner

•

procurement

assistant

•

product design

and

development

engineer

e.g.

•

junior energy

manager

•

smart meter

installer

•

sustainability

business

specialist

Sustainability framework / Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education

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193

Green jobs scale

ACTIVITY: List three typical jobs your learners tend to progress onto after their studies in your subject.

Consider the IFATE scale. Where on the scale do you feel each of
these jobs are placed?

Add your jobs to the Padlet.

EDUCATION & TRAINING FOUNDATION

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Summary: Sustainability skills

Sustainability skills are in greater demand than ‘green jobs’ and are
in themselves multi-faceted.

Proportionality of ESD content as well as relevance is important.

We need to jargon check our language to enhance engagement
with sustainability skills.

EDUCATION & TRAINING FOUNDATION

​Creative Task

Create an 'At a Glance' document, which will be a guide for teachers.

The guide must only be one page long and must include what you feel are the key points that teachers need to know.

It needs to be eye catching, so should not just be a lot of text on a Word document.