Putting sustainability at the heart of the curriculum

This article was first published in Summer 2025 in Vol 137 of the NAEE journal. The latest Environmental Education journal is available free to NAEE members.

We are living in unprecedented times. We face multiple interrelated problems, including soil degradation, forest fires, flooding, pandemics, plastic pollution, sea level rise, extreme weather events, mass migration, and widespread ecological collapse. Although natural causes are a factor, the current mega-crisis has not arisen by chance. It mostly stems from human activity and is rooted in the beliefs and values that people hold about themselves and the world. Ecological overshoot and social dislocation are two sides of the same coin.

Education is widely recognised as having an essential role in promoting sustainability awareness and an ethic of environmental care. The values and dispositions that are formed in childhood are the basis for future behaviours and actions. Schools especially are places where young people can grow in maturity and develop the ability to analyse problems, think critically, and make balanced judgements. Educational philosopher Gert Biesta (2015) argues that helping pupils to move from a self-centred to a more world-centred perspective is a fundamental educational task. He sees this as a process of interruption in which educators arouse in pupils the desire to question whether what they desire is desirable: desirable – that is for their own lives, for the lives they live with others, and the lives they live collectively on the planet that supports us.

Many questions remain to be answered. The notion of what it means for pupils of different ages to be sustainability literate has still to be articulated; the concepts and principles that are fundamental to sustainability-thinking are yet to be agreed; the concept of sustainability is itself continually evolving.

Reforming the curriculum to incorporate sustainability at a deep level will involve re-interpreting established knowledge and understanding. As Stephen Sterling (2024) puts it, we need to unlearn the pattern of values, thinking, and behaviour that have brought us to this impasse so that we can fully embrace new learning and ideas. There can be no quick fixes, but there are plenty of opportunities. Our thoughts and actions make the world, and education has a key role to play in helping us to secure the future.

References:

• Biesta, G. (2015) ‘The Duty to Resist: Redefining the Basics for Today’s Schools’, Research on Steiner Education, 6, pp. 1–11.
• Sterling, S. (2024) Learning and Sustainability in Dangerous Times. Newcastle upon Tyne: Agenda Publishing.