The beginning of a new year often sparks a sense of renewal and an opportunity to reenergise. One of the main outcomes from the first meeting of the Task Force of the year was to set as a common goal to be more visible at pedagogical conferences, while also being mindful of available time and resources.
On March 4, 2025, the Task Force on Education for Sustainability met for its 8th meeting since its inception. This was also the first meeting without Steven Curtis, formerly at the Division of Higher Education Development, member of the Working Group, and a driving force behind many of the advancements in Education for Sustainability that we have seen in the past year. This means that the Working Group and Task Force need to find clever ways to work more effectively without adding even more work to long to-do-lists. One strategy that the Working Group currently makes use of is to open events and activities, that we are anyway undertaking, to additional participants. This way we can reach a larger audience without adding working hours.
For instance, the Teaching for Sustainability-initiative has launched two new formats that are open to everyone:
- Transformation Thursday: once a month we meet for an informal lunch somewhere on the campus. Our next Transformation Thursday will take place on 20 March at Moroten & Piskan from 11:30, followed by our upcoming event with Ola Leifler from Linköping University on 20 March, 1-3 pm: Teaching for Sustainability: Megagames – Large Scale Social Simulations | Staff Pages
- Book Club: We are reading “Becoming an Everyday Changemaker”- one part discussed each time over three times this semester. We discussed Part I on March 12, but you are most welcome to join the discussion about Part II on April 23 even if you missed the first gathering. We meet on Teams (see separate Teams-channel or contact thoni@cec.lu.se)
Do you have events such as final presentations in a course, departmental talks that could interest a broader audience, or other activities you would like to share within the Teaching for Sustainability-community for more cross-faculty inspiration and learning? Welcome to share your ideas on our Teams-channel open to all staff at Lund University interested in Education for Sustainability: Community of Practice (TfS) | General | Microsoft Teams
On the topic of outreach and visibility, the Task Force also discussed the possibility of getting more visibility for Education for Sustainability at an upcoming pedagogical conference, possibly even arranging a specific track on this topic. We decided to follow up with organisers of upcoming conferences, not least the Faculty of Engineering hosting the annual pedagogical conference on December 4. Regarding content of a potential track or activity, one idea is to arrange for teachers from different faculties to meet and discuss curricula design. We also agreed that regardless of content it will be important to communicate a save-the-date early on as the main reason that teacher do not attend pedagogical conferences seems to be that they are busy teaching.
Updates from faculties and departments
- The IIIEE has just launched a new MOOC on 1.5-degree lifestyles “mainstreaming everyday sustainability”. The MOOC consists of 25 videos and is published on the Coursera-platform: https://www.coursera.org/learn/onepointfive-degree-lifestyles-mainstreaming-everyday-sustainability/
- The Department of Design Sciences has launched a Sustainability seminar lunch series open to the whole department. So far, two seminars have been held. Contact Rhiannon Pugh for more information.
- Faculty of Law has launched a workshop/seminar series with the teachers of the master’s programme in European Business Law. The teachers, with varying background and experience when it comes to education for sustainability, will meet three times to implement sustainability in the programme as a red thread.
- The Faculty of Law has also published its new sustainability plan, running 2025-2026, with action items on education for sustainability.
- The Division for Higher Education Development is currently in a transitioning phase with upcoming reorganisation and recruitment processes.
- Department of Political Science: two smaller grant applications for post-doc funding in the field of education for sustainability have been submitted (LU internal + Crawford).
- At the Department of Communication there are discussions around social sustainability and what this entails, not least considering recent international events and related to the new Centre for Preparedness and Resilience to be established | Internal Faculty of Social Sciences.
- The Faculty of Medicine has continued its workshops with teachers about teaching for sustainability, and climate and (planetary) health. In the context of U21, Susanne Brokop is working on two international workshops – on to be held in Dublin and one digital. The Medical Programme now has mandatory parts on sustainability.
Next meeting
Will take place May 20, 2-4 pm, online. If you would like to join, please contact Terese: terese.thoni@cec.lu.se
If you are interested in looking closer at our faculties sustainable development plans, please contact Terese to set up a separate meeting.
As always: If you would like to get in touch, we would love to hear from you and for you to join our activities! 🙂 You are also welcome to contact us with suggestions on activities and resources that you think would make a difference to educators for sustainability. If you are interested in a tailor-made presentation or workshop about Education for Sustainability for your unit, team of educators, or other interested participants, please contact terese.thoni@cec.lu.se for more information and time-booking.
Those present:
- Jessika Richter, The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE)
- Marja-Liisa Öberg, Faculty of Law
- Michael Bossetta, Department of Communication
- Rhiannon Pugh, Department of Design Sciences
- Sara Andersson, Division for Higher Education Development (AHU)/Department of Educational Sciences
- Susanne Brokop, Department of Health Sciences
- Terese Thoni, Sustainability Forum – meeting minutes
- Thomas Hickmann, Department of Political Science
