Teaching for Sustainability

Ola Leifler’s demonstration of large-scale social simulations (“Megagames”) yesterday

27 curious teachers joined Ola Leifler‘s demonstration of large-scale social simulations (“Megagames”) yesterday. Can you imagine playing a game with 180 people in individual roles for a full day? Me not really, but at least a little bit more after yesterday’s demonstration.

On the image above you see part of the setup: There were three main areas on big tables where most of the discussion during game rounds happens, and where there are boardgame-like elements — a geography, cards that represent resources like fossil fuels or college graduated, plans of what to collect in order to be able to buy something, and much more. Facilitators organize the game in rounds and can intervene in the game in many ways, for example by closing down a stock exchange due to extreme weather, or just by ending the game a round before everybody expects it to end. Participants get individual role descriptions (1-2 pages long) with different pieces of background information and cues to how their role might act. Mine was a low-income senior citizen who had worked hard all their life to create the country we all live in, with a lot of time on their hands to attend meetings and let others know about the experiences they have collected. Another senior citizen had the superpower of rolling a dice once every round to make the choice between different options that the facilitator offers! Other roles included politicians or climate activists. Between rounds, participants can check in with their team mates (for example all the other low-income citizens) and discuss strategies for the next round.

The experience — even though it was just a demo and not the actual game, and even though we were way fewer people than can be engaged in the game — was chaotic. But that is also the point: This is not a game where we can understand the complexity and optimize strategy; the experience really drives home the need for conversation and collaboration. You definitely do experience complexity, even though the system is extremely simplified compared to the real world; for example international trade is just a mechanic in the game and not an active player, and there is only a handful of companies that work on non-overlapping products and services. The game is intentionally set up in the sweet spot between role playing, board games and simulations — not as overwhelming and complex as a full-on simulation, but more free than a classical boardgame, and with some of the creativity but much less of the performance aspect of role plays. And it is really engaging, even just in the demo version!

If you are interested to learn more, you can read more about the game here, and if you are really keen to experience it in full soon, you might consider to join a session in Stockholm on April 28: Megagame – Changing the Game of Consumption. Or to let us know — we are planning to invite Ola back to run the full game with us, so if you want to join (alone, or with a group of people) be in touch!

21/03/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Event summaries

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Invitation: Teaching Sustainability – a teacher-led grassroots initiative for course development

We are excited to invite you to the final presentations of projects in the Collegial project course “Teaching Sustainability for a Circular Built Environment”!

Day: 22/4 2025
Time: 8:30-12:00
Place: Pepparholm, Studiecentrum LTH, John Ericssons väg 4
Calendar event available here.

In this course, 9 teachers of a wide variety of courses in the Civil Engineering (V) programme at LTH took the grassroot initiative to improve teaching of circularity and sustainability throughout the programme, both in individual courses and in collaboration.

We will present 4 projects that have been/will very soon be implemented in existing courses, to share our experiences, learning, and potentially transferrable ideas, and to get your feedback. We hope to inspire more similar projects and collaborations!

So that we have enough coffee and fika for everyone, please register using the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/UrSMuN10Bf

We are looking forward to seeing you there!
Jonas Niklewski, Ivar Björnsson, and Mirjam Glessmer

21/03/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Events

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Looking Ahead: First Task Force-meeting of 2025

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 8^th 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

17/03/2025

terese

This entry was posted in

Task Force

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

New Sustainability MOOC! Guest post by Jessika Richter

At the end of February, IIIEE, together with partners from around the EU launched a new massive open online course (MOOC) 1.5° Lifestyles: everyday sustainability on the coursera platform. The course is based on the findings and insights from a 4 year research project funded by the European Union. The EU 1.5° Lifestyles project’s main aim was to foster the mainstreaming of lifestyles in accordance with the aspirational 1.5° climate target agreed by countries around the world through the Paris Agreement.

Throughout this course, we help learners explore many aspects of what we mean by 1.5° lifestyles – living sustainably, having low carbon impacts and being healthy and happy while living within planetary boundaries. We also emphasise that transitioning to 1.5° lifestyles requires not only individual changes, but also changes on a societal level – from the communities in which we live to changes to the fundamental structures and values of society.

The MOOC brings together many experts from academic institutions and non-governmental organizations around the EU to explore a range of relevant topics. This was a logistical challenge in terms of planning the curriculum and filming, but ultimately increased the diversity of academic and practitioner perspectives. From analyzing consumption patterns and behavioral drivers to considering policy implications and societal shifts, exploring 1.5° lifestyles requires a holistic perspective on the complex interplay between individuals, communities, and the environment. By critically examining real-world case studies and engaging in interactive discussions, we hope learners will acquire practical tools and strategies to foster sustainable practices in their own lives while also understanding the structural barriers that need to be addressed.

In Module 1, we first introduce the 1.5°target and how we can think about climate targets from a consumption-based approach.
In Module 2, we look more into the potential contributions of individuals and households in adopting lifestyle changes. In particular, we look at changes in the domains of nutrition, mobility, housing and leisure. We will also discuss the limitations and barriers for individuals and households to make the changes alone.
In Module 3, we explore the structural changes and policies needed for a transition to a low carbon society.

While the project is based on findings from EU countries, we also know that there are different contexts beyond this relevant to learning more about 1.5° lifestyles. If we think of 1.5° lifestyles as embedded in a context, then we also should expect that individuals will have different starting points, different pathways or journeys and different contexts in which they navigate those pathways. We are also interested in those differences and understanding what 1.5° lifestyles look like in all their varieties. To this end, the course also encourages sharing of experiences from all participants – through the course project and forum discussions – and this is another valuable source of learning in this course. The course project itself challenges learners to implement a lifestyle change for a couple of weeks and observe the enablers and challenges that make this change one they would implement permanently or not. The project asks them to reflect not only on their experience, but others’ experiences and the structures of society around them. Through this project design, we are experimenting with more transformative learning and hope in the future to have more to share about this!

05/03/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Events

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

“Deep learning through “values-thinking”” by Thomas Hickmann

When teaching my students about climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution or other pressing global sustainability problems, I usually start with the notion of the Anthropocene highlighting that humans have become the main driver of change in the planet’s ecosystems. Then, I introduce the planetary boundaries concept to show that humans are crossing a safe operating space causing irreversible damage to the basic living conditions on Earth.

In this context, I often draw on insights from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services or refer to the Global Environment Outlook of the United Nations Environment Programme. In this way, I try to ensure that students learn about the current state of environmental degradation. While this approach feels appropriate, I cannot help but wonder: what are students actually taking away from such lessons? And more importantly, am I unintentionally leaving them overwhelmed or disheartened?

Through discussions and readings in the pedagogical course on “Integrating Sustainability Competencies in Curriculum” at the Division for Higher Education Development, I realized how crucial it is for a deeper learning process to more actively engage students and meet them where they are in the overall debate about ecological crisis and the over-exploitation of the planet’s life sustaining resources.

As a result, in a new Master’s level course on Environmental and Planetary Politics at the department of political science, I decided to place strong emphasis on “values-thinking” which I understand, following Redman and Wiek, as a crucial sustainability competence that entails the ability to identify, compare and apply concrete sustainability values and related principles and goals. My key idea was that students develop a deep understanding of their own values in relation to the debate on political responses to human-driven global environmental changes.

Moreover, I wanted students to realize that the policies of various political actors and institutions are shaped by underlying environmental worldviews. By encouraging students to critically examine different perspectives and position themselves within a renowned typology of worldviews of global environmental change, I aimed to foster a more nuanced understanding of how values influence decision-making processes in addressing sustainability problems.

PPT Slide: Typology of worldviews of global environmental change

So how did I do that? After students got familiar with the typology of worldviews distinguishing between market liberals, institutionalists, bioenvironmentalists and social greens, they engaged in partner discussions before positioning themselves in the typology, aligning their own values with the analytical categories of the typology. This exercise did not only deepen their conceptual understanding but also prompted students to critically evaluate their own belief systems and convictions in relation to dominant practices of dealing with environmental problems.

In a next step, students participated in a role-play activity. They were assigned to four groups, each representing one worldview in a “United Nations high-level expert panel”. The groups had the task to provide suggestions based on their respective worldviews how to best respond to pressing global environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss and plastic pollution. That way, students experienced firsthand the strong differences and overlaps between the worldviews and the underlying values.

PPT Slide: United Nations high-level expert panel

After the role-play, students reflected on their experiences and shared insights how the role-play shaped their understanding of worldviews. Drawing on these experiences and insights, students used the typology of worldviews as a framework to critically evaluate real-world examples of political responses to sustainability problems, engaging in a debate how different worldviews on global environmental change influence political action.

To round this up, students created posters on their different worldviews emphasizing political response strategies for achieving sustainable development in the 21st century. The goal was to give students a chance to be creative and demonstrate their understanding of the connections between values and politics while applying their knowledge in an active environment. These posters were presented and discussed in a concluding exhibition.

In my own reflection, the emphasis on “values-thinking” proved to be highly effective in stimulating student engagement, participation and deep learning. Students actively engaged throughout the course, as they had a chance to connect the thematic input, readings and discussions to their personal beliefs, experiences and ways of thinking. This fostered not only intellectual engagement but also provided a space for students to bring their emotions and personal perspectives into the classroom, enriching the learning experience.

To support students’ deep learning processes, I employed a variety of tools to promote meaningful interactions among students: I started my sessions with “check-ins”, allowing students to express their current emotions and ensuring they felt heard and supported in their respective situations. I conducted a “socio-metric exercise” prior to the role-play to offer opportunities for students to get to know each other, enhancing their ability to work together. I gave students time to reason about critical questions by using the “think-pair-share-technique”, fostering active engagement and peer-to-peer learning. I asked students to compile a “learning journal”, with three guiding questions, encouraging students to document their learning progress.

The ability to identify, compare, and apply concrete sustainability values, principles, and goals is a crucial competence for advancing sustainable development. Combining this competence with future-thinking is particularly promising and essential for generating political and societal changes that disrupt the status quo. With a deep understanding of how values influence political decisions, one can recognize and develop alternative futures that help guide us towards sustainable pathways.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful for the pedagogical support that I received from Steven Curtis, Mirjam Glessmer and Terese Thoni in the pedagogical course Integrating Sustainability Competencies into Curriculum during the autumn term 2024 and greatly appreciated the exchange with all course participants.

References

Clapp, Jennifer, and Peter Dauvergne (2011). Paths to a green world: The political economy of the global environment. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Redman, Aaron, and Arnim Wiek (2021). Competencies for advancing transformations towards sustainability. Frontiers in Education 6, Article 785163.

Warburton, Kevin (2003). Deep learning and education for sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 4(1), 44-56.

20/02/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Experiences from the field

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Invitation: “Megagames – Large Scale Social Simulations” with Ola Leifler

As educators, how can we support students in developing skills to facilitate and engage in constructive conversations around social change? Large-scale social simulations (“megagames”) provide space and context needed to train these skills. At this seminar, Ola Leifler from Linköping University will present their leading research on large-scale social simulations, and demonstrate some of the games they use in their teaching.

Following our seminar series on Teaching for Sustainability – Serious Games, we will now take a closer look at megagames – a type of serious games that take the shape of large-scale social simulations. A serious game is any intervention or simulation that integrates educational content, skills development, and learning outcomes into a game-like environment that promotes student engagement, critical thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. By combining game mechanics with pedagogical principles, serious games allow students to explore complex real-world issues, experience decision-making scenarios, and apply theoretical concepts in an interactive and inclusive learning environment.

Join our seminar to explore how megagames are being used as a pedagogical approach to advance student understanding of complex sustainability issues and in particular fosters constructive dialogue on social change. Ola Leifler at Linköping University has long experience with serious games and leads a research project on megagames, focused on energy transitions, regional transformation, and sustainable consumption.

During the seminar, we will:

Get an introduction to megagames as an educational activity
Hear about the latest research on megagames
Get a demonstration of megagames used at Linköping University
Explore the possible use of megagames in our own teaching

About the Speaker: Ola Leifler

Associate Professor Ola Leifler is lecturer at the Department of Computer and Information Science at Linköping University. His research focusses on creating good conditions for conversations about social change through large-scale social simulations (megagames). As a teacher, Ola has a strong interest in Education for Sustainability. Read more about Ola’s research here: Ola Leifler – Linköping University

The seminar will be held in English.

Registration

Registration is open until Tuesday 18 March. For late registration, contact terese.thoni@cec.lu.se.

Visit the registration page here.

Audience

This seminar is intended for programme directors, course coordinators, educators, and study administrators at Lund University. Others are welcome to register, but priority will be given to those from Lund University with existing educational assignments. You do not need previous experience with serious games to attend the seminar.

Venue, Date & Time

Venue: Department of Physics, Sölvegatan 14C, Lund. Room: H421

Upon entering, signage will be visible directing you to the room location.

Date & Time: Thursday 20 March from 13:00 – 15:00

13/02/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Events

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Studenter och lärare kräver en omställning av högre utbildning för en hållbar framtid

Publicerad av Aftonbladet 7/2 2025:

163 universitetsanställda ställer sig bakom studenters krav att påskynda förändringen av högre utbildning så att studenterna som medborgare och i sina framtida yrkesliv ska kunna bidra till en samhällsomställning för hållbarhet. Dessa krav har studenterna tidigare uttryckt i ett öppet brev till rektorerna vid samtliga svenska lärosäten och de inkluderar bland annat tvärdisciplinära utbildningar och ökat studentinflytande för att skapa en hållbar samhällsomställning.

Medan alltmer alarmerande forskningsresultat visar att mänskligheten står inför en existentiell kris på grund av klimatförändringar, förlust av biologisk mångfald och överskridandet av ytterligare planetära gränser så sker mycket arbete vid svenska universitet och högskolor fortfarande som om dessa kriser inte existerade. Det gäller inte minst undervisningen. I ett öppet brev skickar representanter för 13 olika studentkårer en uppmaning till landets rektorer att påskynda processen att göra utbildningen mer relevant, en uppmaning som vi forskare och lärare vid universitetet och högskolor ställer oss helhjärtat bakom.

Brevet är resultatet av en workshop som genomfördes i oktober 2024, där representanter för studentkårerna och Klimatnätverkets arbetsgrupp för lärande för hållbar utveckling diskuterade hur universitetens utbildningar behöver förändras för att bättre förbereda studenterna för att vara en aktiv och kunnig del av den samhällsomställning som krävs för en hållbar och rättvis framtid.

Klimatnätverket är ett nationellt nätverk av universitet och högskolor som bland annat syftar till att stärka samarbetet och utbytet mellan lärosätena inom klimatområdet och underlätta för lärosätena att uppfylla sin del av Parisavtalet. Klimatnätverkets arbete bedrivs i olika fokusgrupper varav en är lärande för hållbar utveckling.

De allvarliga och omfattande brister som studenterna identifierade i dagens utbildningssystem är:

att det saknas förståelse och acceptans för att utbildningarna behöver förändras i grunden om de ska kunna utbilda studenter att bidra till en hållbar värld. Därmed saknas också vilja och beslutsamhet till sådan förändring.
att akademin, som står som garant för mycket av kunskapen kring klimat- och miljöutmaningarna, inte fullt ut är med och driver samhällsomställningen.
att alla utbildningar inte lyfter frågor om hållbarhet och dess komplexitet eller karaktäriseras av lärande för hållbar utveckling, samt att det saknas progression i lärandet för hållbar utveckling.

Studenterna kräver att utbildningarna förändras på följande sätt:

att utbildningar designas, både med avseende på innehåll och pedagogik, med utgångspunkt i de hållbarhetsutmaningar som världen står inför, så att studenternas kompetenser därigenom är aktuella och relevanta för samhällets hållbarhetsutmaningar.
att utbildningar inkluderar tvärdisciplinära möten och kurser där studenter får arbeta med lösningar till verkliga uppdragsgivare och deras samhällsutmaningar.
att alla lärare och personer i ledande roller på våra lärosäten får kompetens om lärande för hållbar utveckling och om lärosätenas ansvar och möjligheter att bidra till samhällsomställning genom lärande för hållbar utveckling.

Studenterna anser att de har en central roll i det förändringsarbetet och att deras initiativ och engagemang måste tas på allvar. De uttrycker i brevet att deras röster ibland inte får gehör. De uttrycker att det är avgörande att:

lärosätena i större grad efterfrågar och tar tillvara studenternas kompetens i utformningen och genomförandet av de förändringar av kurser och utbildningsprogram som behövs,
studenternas röster tas på allvar i informella och formella sammanhang och att studentinflytande meriteras som en del av utbildningarna,
Sveriges lärosäten gemensamt etablerar ett Forum för transformation av högre utbildning för ett större ansvarstagande för framtiden där både studenter, lärare, utbildningsforskare och universitetsledningar finns representerade.

Vi håller med studenterna och tycker att det är viktigt att tillmötesgå deras krav. Vi uppmanar er som rektorer att påskynda denna förändringsprocess, så att de kunskaper och färdigheter som studenterna får med sig från våra lärosäten förbereder dem väl för deras framtida yrkesroller, inklusive att ge dem verktyg och möjlighet att aktivt bidra till en hållbar samhällsomställning. Ett nära samarbete mellan alla svenska högskolor och universitet, studenter och relevanta samhällsaktörer är avgörande för att lyckas med denna omställning. Vi som undertecknar denna text är beredda att bidra till denna förändring men behöver också ett helhjärtat stöd från ledningarna vid de högskolor och universitet där vi är verksamma för att lyckas.

Jeannette Eggers, forskare i skoglig planering, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Glenn Bark, universitetslektor i malmgeologi, Luleå tekniska universitet

Esther Hauer, universitetslektor i pedagogik i arbetslivet, Uppsala universitet

Karin Gerhardt, forskare i biologisk mångfald, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Anne-Kathrin Peters, docent i teknikvetenskapens lärande, KTH

Ben Kenward, universitetslektor i psykologi, Uppsala universitet

Isabelle Letellier, universitetslektor i barn och ungdomsvetenskap, Stockholm universitet

Sverker Molander, professor i miljösystem och risk, Chalmers Tekniska Högskola

Maria Hylberg, doktorand, Barn- och ungdomsvetenskapliga institutionen, Stockholms universitet

Cecilia Enberg, universitetslektor, Linköpings universitet

Malin Östman, kurssamordnare, CEMUS, Uppsala universitet

Ulrika Persson-Fischier, PhD, Excellent lärare, adjunkt, Uppsala universitet

Johanna Nygren Spanne, civ.ing, adjunkt, programansvarig för Miljövetarprogrammet – Människa, Miljö, Samhälle, Malmö universitet

Fredrika Mårtensson, Människa och samhälle, universitetslektor, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Hannu Larsson, universitetslektor i informatik, Örebro universitet

Diana Holmqvist, universitetslektor i pedagogik och vuxnas lärande, Linköpings universitet

Johanna Björklund, universitetslektor i miljövetenskap, Örebro universitet

Ewa Livmar, Kurssamordnare, CEMUS, Uppsala universitet

Helena Fornstedt, postdoktor med undervisningsansvar, Uppsala universitet

Carin Cuadra, professor i socialt arbete, Malmö universitet

Mirjam Glessmer, universitetslektor och pedagogisk utvecklare, Lunds Universitet

Felix-Sebastian Koch, docent, Linköpings Universitet

Emilia Åkesson, fil. dr pedagogik, postdoktor i genusvetenskap, Umeå Universitet

Max Koch, professor i socialpolitik och hållbarhet, Lunds universitet

Jayeon Lee, universitetslektor i socialt arbete, Göteborgs universitet

Naghmeh Nasiritousi, docent, Linköpings universitet

Lena Sawyer, docent i socialt arbete, Göteborgs universitet

Stephanie Rost, doktorand, Göteborgs universitet

Klara Bolander Laksov, professor, Stockholms universitet

Anders Rosén, universitetslektor i ingenjörsutbildning, KTH

Per Andersson, professor i pedagogik, Linköpings universitet

Cecilia Josefsson, doktorand och universitetslärare, Uppsala universitet

Marie Kvarnström, konsulent, SLU Centrum för biologisk mångfald

Charlotte Ponzelar, doktorand i didaktik, Uppsala universitet

Natalie Jellinek, pedagogisk utvecklare, Undervisning och Lärande, Karolinska Institutet

Rhiannon Pugh, universitetslektor i innovation, Lunds universitet

Matilda Karlsson, doktorand i socialt arbete, Göteborgs universitet

Christoffer S. Kanarp, forskare i miljökommunikation, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Anna-Lena Sahlberg, universitetslektor i fysik, Lunds universitet

Cecilia Lalander, docent i teknologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Charlotta Delin, pedagogisk utvecklare, KTH

Johanna Spångberg, forskare hållbar livsmedelsproduktion, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Martina Angela Caretta, universitetslektor och docent inom kulturgeografi, Lunds universitet

Iann Lundegård universitetslektor och docent i nv-ämnenas didaktik Stockholms universitet

Fredrik Björk, adjunkt i miljövetenskap och doktorand i miljöhistoria, Malmö universitet

Manuel Fernández Santana, doktorand, Linköpings universitet

Susanna Sternberg Lewerin, professor i epizootologi & smittskydd, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Kajsa Emilsson, forskare i socialpolitik och hållbarhet, Lunds universitet

Sara Gabrielsson, universitetslektor i hållbarhetsvetenskap, Lunds universitet

Helena Röcklinsberg, docent i etik, universitetslektor i djuretik, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Jana Weiss, docent i miljökemi, Stockholms universitet

Brita Sundelin, docent i miljövetenskap, Stockholms universitet

Nike Lindhe, doktorand i klinisk psykologi, Linköpings universitet

Hulda Karlsson-Larsson, doktorand i psykologi, Linköpings universitet

Ola Uhrqvist, universitetslektor, Linköpings universitet

Carole Chappuis, doktorand i naturvetenskapernas didaktik, Linköpings universitet

Joëlle Rüegg, professor i miljötoxikologi, Uppsala universitet

Johanna Lundström, forskare i skoglig planering, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Arthur Rohaert, doktorand i brandteknik, Lunds universitet

Susanne Antell, universitetsadjunkt i naturvetenskap, Högskolan Dalarna

Ingrid Strid, forskare och lärare vid Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Uppsala

Tullia Jack, biträdande lektor, docent, Tjänstevetenskap, Lunds Universitet

Felicia Garcia, pedagogisk utvecklare, Högskolepedagogiskt centrum, Örebro universitet

Muriel Côte, universitetslektor och docent inom kulturgeografi, Lunds universitet

Katarina Andreasen, docent i biologi, Uppsala universitet

Agnes Hamberger, doktorand i utbildningssociologi, Uppsala universitet

Elenor Kaminsky, universitetslektor, docent i Folkhälsa vid Uppsala universitet

Eva Friman, forskare & programchef, Centrum för hälsa och hållbarhet, Uppsala universitet

Jessika Richter, biträdande universitetslektor i hållbar konsumtion, Lunds universitet

Yulia Vakulenko, universitetsadjunkt i förpackningslogistik, Lunds universitet

Åke Hestner, universitetsadjunkt i Matematikdidaktik, Högskolan Dalarna

Karin Steen, universitetslektor, Centrum för studier av uthållig samhällsutveckling/LUCSUS och pedagogisk utvecklare, Avdelningen för högskolepedagogisk utveckling, Lunds Universitet

Anton Grenholm, samordnare för miljö- och hållbarhetsfrågor, Högskolan Dalarna

Thomas Hickmann, biträdande universitetslektor i statsvetenskap, Lunds universitet

Rolf Larsson, professor i tillämpad matematik och statistik, Uppsala Universitet

Björn Victor, professor i datalogi, Uppsala universitet

Ronny Alexandersson, doktor i biologi, Uppsala universitet

Frederik Aagaard Hagemann, doktorand inom urban landskapsplanering, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Kathrin Zeller, docent och universitetslektor i immunteknologi, Lunds Universitet

Ida Wallin, forskare och lärare, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Kevin Noone, professor emeritus i kemisk meteorologi, Stockholms universitet

Magdalena Malm, forskare inom proteinvetenskap, KTH

Anna Malmquist, docent i psykologi, Linköpings universitet

Kristina Boréus, professor i statskunskap, Uppsala universitet

Romina Martin, forskare och lärare i hållbarhet, Stockholm Universitet

Stephanie Carleklev, universitetslektor i design, Linnéuniversitetet

Caroline Greiser, forskare och lärare i landskapsekologi, Stockholm universitet

Patrik Andersson, professor i miljökemi, Umeå universitet

Eva-Maria Nordström, universitetslektor i skoglig planering, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Veronica Flodin, universitetslektor i naturvetenskapernas didaktik, Stockholms universitet

Martin Hultman, docent i vetenskaps-, teknik och miljöstudier, Chalmers Tekniska Högskola

Sachiko Ishihara, doktorand i kulturgeografi, Uppsala universitet

Patrik Oskarsson, docent i landsbygdsutveckling, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet, Uppsala

Johanna Lönngren, docent i teknikdidaktik, Umeå universitet

Per Adman, docent och universitetslektor, Uppsala universitet

Tomas Persson, docent i matematik, Lunds tekniska högskola, Lunds universitet

Marie Bengtsson, professor i kemi med inriktning mot kemisk ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Ebba Malmqvist, docent i miljömedicin, Lunds universitet

Anna Scaini, forskare och lärare i vattenresurser, Stockholms universitet

Cecilia Sundberg, universitetslektor i bioenergisystem, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Juan Samper, doktorand i hållbarhetsvetenskap, Lunds universitet

Stefano Manzoni, professor i ekohydrologi, Stockholms universitet

Göran Finnveden, professor i miljöstrategisk analys, KTH

Hanna Grauers Wiktorin, postdoktor, Uppsala Universitet

Göran Bolin, professor i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, Södertörns högskola

Michael Gilek, professor i miljövetenskap, Södertörns högskola

Kristina Riegert, professor i journalistik, Södertörns högskola

Maria Wolrath Söderberg, docent i retorik, Södertörns högskola

Daniel Pargman, docent i medieteknik med inriktning mot hållbarhet, KTH

Jonas Andersson, docent i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, Södertörns högskola

Maria Niemi, docent i folkhälsovetenskap, Karolinska Institutet

Isabel Löfgren, lektor i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, Södertörns högskola

Klas Ytterbrink Nordenskiöld, doktorand i medicin, Karolinska Institutet

Stina Bengtsson, professor i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap, Södertörns högskola

Rikard Hjorth Warlenius, docent i samhällsvetenskapliga miljöstudier, Södertörns högskola

Peter Dobers, professor i företagsekonomi, dekan för fakultetsnämnden 2016-2022, Södertörns högskola

Tommy Jensen, professor i företagsekonomi, Stockholms Universitet

Birgitta Schwartz, professor i företagsekonomi, Stockholms Universitet

Marita Cronqvist, docent i pedagogiskt arbete, Högskolan i Borås

Ulf Bergström, docent i marin ekologi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Hervé Corvellec, professor i företagsekonomi, Lunds Universitet

Erik Månsson, universitetslektor, Handelshögskolan vid Karlstads Universitet

Henrik Loodin, fil. dr. sociologi, Lunds universitet

Sara Persson, postdoc i företagsekonomi, Södertörns högskola

Matilda Dahl, docent i företagsekonomi Uppsala universitet

Matilda S. Watz, biträdande universitetslektor i strategisk hållbar utveckling, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Åsa Cajander, professor i människa-datorinteraktion, Uppsala universitet

Herman Stål, docent företagsekonomi, Handelshögskolan vid Umeå universitet

Kristin Caravelli-Svärd, doktorand i företagsekonomi, Karlstads Universitet

Helén Williams, docent i miljö- och energisystem, Karlstads universitet

Henrietta Palmer, arkitekt och forskare, Göteborgs Universitet

Göran Broman, professor i maskinteknik, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Fredrik Wikström, professor i Miljö- och energisystem, Karlstads universitet

Maria Berge, universitetslektor vid Institutionen för naturvetenskapernas och matematikens didaktik, Umeå universitet

Annette Risberg, gästprofessor i organisation, Malmö Universitet

Markus Schneider, universitetspedagogiska enheten, Karlstads universitet

Michael Håkansson, Lektor i didaktik, Stockholms universitet

Alexis Engström, pedagogisk utvecklare, Mittuniversitetet

Cecilia Åsberg, professor i genus, natur, kultur, The Posthumanities Hub, Linköpings universitet

Sven Borén, Lektor i Strategisk Hållbar Utveckling, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Michael Johansson, Forskare Tjänstevetenskap, Lunds universitet

Per Knutsson, lektor i humanekologi, Göteborgs Universitet

Anette Strömberg, universitetslektor innovationsteknik, Mälardalens universitet

Kjell Vowles, postdoktor, Göteborgs universitet.

Cecilia Bratt, lektor i strategisk hållbar utveckling, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Annika Olofsdotter Bergström, Lektor Medieteknik, Södertörns Högskola

Nina Wormbs, professor i teknikhistoria, KTH

Adam Wickberg, docent i historiska studier av teknik, vetenskap och miljö, KTH

Alexandra D’Urso, pedagogisk utvecklare på Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet och forskare i pedagogik

Merlina Missimer, docent i Strategisk Hållbar Utveckling, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Jenny Helin, docent i företagsekonomi, Rektorsråd för Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland

Annie Gregory, doktorand, Uppsala Universitet

Pernilla Ouis, fil. dr. i humanekologi och professor i socialt arbete vid Högskolan i Halmstad

Lars Hedegård, universitetslektor i företagsekonomi, Högskolan i Borås

Hampus Holmström, analytiker, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet

Dana Bergman, universitetsadjunkt på institutionen för strategisk hållbar utveckling på Blekinge Tekniska Högskola

Birgit Penzenstadler, Associate Professor for Software Engineering, Chalmers Tekniska Högskola and University of Gothenburg

Carl-Gustaf Bornehag, professor i folkhälsovetenskap, Karlstads universitet, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY, USA

Malin Knutz, PhD folkhälsovetenskap, Karlstads universitet, programledare för “Hälsa, miljö och samhälle” samt Masterprogrammet i folkhälsovetenskap.

Helena Pedersen, docent i pedagogik, programledare för Masterprogrammet i Education for Sustainable Development, Göteborgs universitet

Carolina Jernbro, docent i folkhälsovetenskap, Karlstads universitet

Åsa Bringsén, lektor i folkhälsovetenskap och programområdesansvarig för Folkhälsovetenskapligt program med inriktning beteendevetenskap, Högskolan Kristianstad.

Ingemar Jönsson, professor i ekologi, Högskolan Kristianstad.

Samuel Petros Sebhatu, universitetslektor, Handelshögskolan vid Karlstads Universitet

Petra Nilsson Lindström, biträdande professor i hälsovetenskap, Högskolan Kristianstad

Lena Gumaelius, docent i teknikvetenskapens lärande, KTH

07/02/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Uncategorized

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Grand Seminar “Exploring the complexities and potentials of environmental communication”

Did you attend the Grand Seminar on “Exploring the complexities and potentials of environmental communication”, organised by LU Sustainability Forum, BECC and MERGE? If not, you definitely missed out on a lot of interesting input and a great opportunity to connect with passionate people that want to explore environmental communication!

All presentations were very interesting in their own right, but to give you a taste of what you missed, I am only writing about my personal highlight: Nina Wormbs speaking on

“Legitimising non-action”.

There are so many decisions we make every single day, regarding our carbon footprint, but also healthy eating habits, screen time, and many more, where we know the right thing to do, yet we manage to find ways to do something else that seem justified to us, so we can do things we know to be bad without feeling bad about them. So how does that work? That is where Nina Wormbs research comes in: She is investigating the different ways people argue for why they act against their own better judgement on questions of sustainability.

But let’s take a step back. Looking at all the examples mentioned above and many more (smoking? Social media? Exercising?), knowing better does not mean doing better. A lot of effort in science communication goes into trying to make people “listen to science”, but in that context “science” most often means STEM, and just telling people is clearly ineffective — the information deficit is not the problem. There are many reasons for non-acting, both in the biology of the brain AND in how people function as social beings in a culture. If we want people to change how people act, we, the researchers and communicators, need to ourselves listen to other disciplines. STEM might tell us that we need to act, but not how. And the how very easily becomes ideological and political. There are, of course, climate / science deniers, but while we need to understand what is going on with them, they are not the majority. The majority of people do accept science, want to act, but find themselves acting against their knowledge and intentions.

Wormbs presents a study where people self-report in survey, responding to the prompt “Describe an experience of doing what you know you shouldn’t do. How do you deal with the cognitive dissonance? How did you legitimise it in your head to make it “ok”?” They had about 400 respondents, and many respondents gave more than one reason. The most common reasons were

Account thinking. In this line of argumentation, people balance what they do against what they don’t do, for example “I want to fly. I know I should not, but I bike to work and don’t eat meat, so overall flying is ok”. The problem with that is that there cannot be a balance, since there isn’t a budget that is “ok” to use; everything we do emits CO2 that shouldn’t get into the atmosphere, so balancing isn’t a valid approach. Also, most often the proportions are off between actions that people are trying to balance, between the “good” and “less-good” deeds. If people put more effort into something, it tends to counts more in their imagined balance, even if the actual effect is minimal.
Comparison. There are always people who do worse than us and in comparison to them, what we do is really not so bad or maybe even pretty good; or if we are comparing with ourselves, we are at least doing a bit better than we did years ago. There is a lot of “what-about-ism” happening.
Limitations. People argue for example that they need to take the car to work, even thought the wouldn’t want to, there is no other possibility. There are a lot of goal conflicts in these kinds of arguments. For example, if we want women to be able to be bosses, maybe they need to dive a car to bring their kids to daycare and pick them up again (was the example she mentioned). Or if you live far away from your family, seeing them is valued very highly and emitting seems justified.
“I am only human”. Here, people say things like “I cannot save the planet by myself” or “I had a tough week, I needed and deserved to do this”.
“Tiny me”. This is when people argue that their contribution is so tiny, it shouldn’t count in comparison to Amazon or China. However, in democracy, we don’t argue that way, we argue that every vote counts.
Technology is going to solve it! This is a very common line of arguments in politics, but surprisingly only surfaced a handful of times from the 400 people!

In this survey, people were asked how they justify things to themselves. But there is always an audience, even for internal arguments, since we are social beings. Our arguments need to not only “work” on us, but they also need to work on people that matter to us (even if only in the conversations that we have about it in our own head). If someone who matters to us questions our arguments, we might rethink it and either find better arguments or potentially realize that the argument does not hold, and in order to find approval with the people who matter to us, change behaviour.

In a second study, Wormbs investigated how people argue that DO change stuff, e.g. stop flying. Typically they’ve known for a long time that they should change, but then suddenly had a realisation that they need to act, that they cannot escape. Typical triggers for this realisation are reported as

Fear! For example, all of Fridays for Future is built on fear. Fear can convert knowledge into action!
Having children or grandchildren or some other important child in their life. A child adds another 30 years or so of relevant timeline beyond our own projected lifetime, so suddenly the longer-term future matters more.
Children bring knowledge home from school, and take action like not eating meat any more. Parents or other carers need to relate to that, often leading to a change in behavior for them, too (even just because it is easier to just cook vegetarian for everybody than preparing two parallel meals)
Comparison (remember above? There is always someone who behaves worse than us) changes and now is not with a neighbour with a bigger house and more cars and frequent flying any more, but with other places in the world where emissions are much lower but the standard of living needs to be built up
Responsibility. Here, people think “If not me, then who?” They develop the will to act in accordance with convictions. “If it all goes down the drain, I want to be able to look my kid in the eye and say I did all I could”

But now the question remains: How do we reach people who want to change? How can we have the meaningful conversations? What we all have to go through is an emotional, painful change and potentially an existential crisis. How do we do it well?

In the discussion following the presentation, the point was brought up on whether we aren’t putting too much responsibility on the individual. What about the system? And here, Wormbs pointed out that there are not just those two levels. Individuals can affect a group (their family, a sports club, their neighbours), a municipality, an enterprise, …, all the way up to national and international governance. And I find that a very hopeful framing! We are going to disagree talking about sustainability, even with people who are generally on the same page as us, but we need to have the discussions. We need more, and better, conversations. As I wrote recently: The process is the point.

If you are interested in discussing Teaching for Sustainability, you are very welcome to get in touch with us!

P.S.: If you are interested, you can read my summary of some of the other presentations on my personal blog.

27/01/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Event summaries

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Assessing Key Competencies for Sustainability

Before we get into the how of assessing key competencies for sustainability, let’s first look at the why (other than that is part of what we get paid to do, and that students need to somehow get certified for courses we teach in order to complete their studies). Assessment always also serves a double purpose with regard to improving both learning and teaching: It gives students an idea of how they are doing in relation to teacher expectations, and it gives the teacher feedback on how well their teaching is working.

Of course, these last two points are really difficult in practice. Is what we measure really aligned with what we are hoping students will have learned? And can we even measure what we have hoped they have learned? If we think about Teaching for Sustainability as mainly teaching key competencies, i.e. embedded performances or internal cognitive processes, rather than disciplinary content (often factual), we face a task that is both exciting and challenging. How are we going to teach and assess competencies like whether someone can think in systems or envision different futures in ways that actually capture that competence fully? I don’t have all the answers, but here are some thoughts.

First, let us start backwards and “constructively align” our instruction by thinking about the Intended Learning Outcomes, how we would know if students meet them (i.e. the assessment), and then lastly how we might actually go about organising teaching and learning so students have the chance to show us in the assessment that they have met the learning outcomes (i.e. the learning activities).

Intended Learning Outcomes: Key Competencies for Sustainability

Let’s say our learning outcomes are key competencies for sustainability. There are several frameworks in the literature that have converged so much over time that it does not really make a difference which one we pick, so let us just go for the one by Redman & Wiek (2021).

One thing is always important to mention about this framework: Areas in the figure are obviously neither proportional to importance of competencies, nor the time that should be spent on each!

With that out of the way, the framework in a nutshell: Students always learn a lot of disciplinary competencies that range from fairly generic to highly specialised. But they also need content-independent general and professional competencies, like for example critical thinking (an all-time favourite!) or good communication skills. They also need to develop and practice inter-personal and intra-personal competencies, and that is where we come into the realm of key competencies for sustainability: Together with planning competencies and implementation competencies, they can become integrated competencies. The key here is that while competencies can be practised each on their own to some extent, they need to also be practised together. Btw, note how all these competencies seem to make a lot of sense to master to be prepared for what the future might bring, regardless of whether we want to tackle sustainability challenges (There is an almost complete overlap with the requirements of the 1993 law that sets the requirements for a Swedish Master of Science in Engineering!). So it’s basically the common-sense understanding of preparedness for the future put into a framework that shows how the competences build on and relate to each other and to disciplinary content.

But what do those competencies entail in detail? Some of them were operationalised for higher education in Wiek et al. (2015), which is very helpful (and also a little scary because there is so much that we should be able to do!) Below, I am sharing one slide on collaboration (or interpersonal competence) because it feels like the one competence that we might be most familiar with, both when it comes to our own skills and teaching it. I share similar slides for the other competencies here.

In the levels of “novices”, “intermediates” and “advanced learners can …” is some kind of progression indicated, maybe with novice being incoming students and advanced what students will have mastered over the 5 years of a program. And of course we can also consider whether all these competencies need to be mastered by everybody, or whether we should rather count on working in teams with distributed expertise, as Wiek et al. (2011) suggest (and to be fair, the article is specifically about sustainability programs). In any case, the Wiek et al. (2015) article provides a very detailed account of how each of the key competencies can be operationalised, and that is a great start that then every teacher, every program needs to adapt to their own context to formulate their Intended Learning Outcomes on module, course, program level. But keep in mind that practising elements in isolation is not enough, they need to also be practised in an integrated way. So there needs to be some progression over time.

Now, let’s assume we have formulated the Intended Learning Outcomes. How would we be able to know if students every achieve them?

Assessment Tools

This is actually a really difficult question. Redman et al. (2021) gives an overview over common assessment tools, which I summarise in the slide below. But note that this is study about what is most common, and then discussing pros and cons, it is not a necessarily a list of what is most desirable!

So far, so good! But now we need to combine the assessment tool with some form of assessment criteria. I recently wrote a longer blog post on the topic where I show different rubrics from the literature (and I found it really interesting, so you might want to check it out), but what I think is most important to consider is what indicators can we observe that someone has learnt “enough”, and how we set the relative importance of showing one indicator vs not showing another one.

One distinction that I find helpful when thinking about this is whether we want to measure or judge a student performance (you might want to read Hagen & Butler (1996) on this). In a measurement mindset, we assume that we can actually find objective measures of performance, whereas in a judging model we rely on holistic assessment by experts. But to ensure fairness, even those experts need to communicate about their criteria and indicators, and make sure they are more or less on the same page. So developing a rubric might still a good idea (and this might of course include negotiation with students both to give them ownership and to ensure that they know what is expected of them).

I am not sure if I want to open this can of worms here and now, but the thought of student ownership of assessment leads me to a thing called “sustainable assessment“. In a nutshell, it means an assessment that is useful to learning beyond the frame of the course it is related to, not just in terms of retaining the learnt information and skills for longer, but to support future learning. Of the assessment tools in the figure above, “reflective writing” might be the most obvious candidate for sustainable assessment, because it includes learning to identify where someone is at, where they want to get to (whether that is to reach our Intended Learning Outcomes or maybe explicitly and purposefully something else), some thoughts about how to get there, and thoughts looking back evaluating how things went, and then using this to plan future steps. The skills learnt in that process can obviously be useful beyond just the one course where reflective writing is used as assessment tool.

And of course, a summative assessment situation should never be the first time that students are faced with a specific type of task, so the assessment should be tied in, and practised with, the learning activities.

Learning Activities

This is probably where the overwhelming majority of literature has their focus, but usually without explicitly connecting them to either ILOs or assessment.

I like to use the figure below, which I re-imagined after Brundiers et al. (2021) (now that I know I didn’t invent it myself…), to show where, in a typical project, each sustainability competency can be practised, and how some of them necessarily have to go together.

For example, to understand a complex, current problem and how it came to be, we do need systems thinking, but we also need interpersonal competence to be able to talk to, and empathise with, people who maybe were part of creating the problem (or just people on our team who also want to understand the problem!), and normative competence so we understand what values led to the status quo. Similarly, to envision both intervention and non-intervention futures, we need to have anticipatory competences. Developing strategies requires obviously some strategic competence, and at all stages we need to be able to understand and work with other people, and also ourselves. And this is obviously the most simplified way of talking about those competencies, I would like to remind you of their operationalisations I mentioned above…

And in the end, in most learning activities, we go from some input through some process to some output. And in those steps, we can always practice all those competencies if we open up for it, for example by including opportunities to communicate with peers or people that we might not typically communicate with, or to relate things to our own values or understanding of the world. However, some pedagogical approaches are more likely to be connected with learning of sustainability competencies than others (see Lozano & Barreiro-Gen, 2022, or my summary). For example working with case studies means that we can simultaneously get insights into specific cases (ha!) from industry or anywhere else and practice disciplinary skills and acquire disciplinary knowledge as well as sustainability competencies, whereas “just” calculating a solution might practice relevant disciplinary skills, but is a missed opportunity in terms of practising sustainability competencies.

A suggested approach

Steven Curtis shared his suggested general approach to assessment in the ISCC course:

Identify relevant competence(s) clearly expressed in ILOs
Select assessment methods that align with chosen competence
Ground assessment tasks in real-world contexts
Create rubrics with transparent criteria for each competency level (e.g. novice, intermediate, advanced)
Include opportunities for reflection and peer feedback
Collect and analyse student performance to refine and improve teaching
Use iterative assessments to support ongoing competency development

With this — good luck, and please don’t hesitate to be in touch if you have questions or comments, or just want to discuss!

Brundiers, K., Barth, M., Cebrián, G., Cohen, M., Diaz, L., Doucette-Remington, S., … & Zint, M. (2021). Key competencies in sustainability in higher education—toward an agreed-upon reference framework. Sustainability Science, 16, 13-29.

Lozano, R., & Barreiro-Gen, M. (2022). Connections between sustainable development competences and pedagogical approaches. In Competences in Education for Sustainable Development: Critical Perspectives (pp. 139-144). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Redman, A., & Wiek, A. (2021, November). Competencies for advancing transformations towards sustainability. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 6, p. 785163). Frontiers Media SA. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.785163

Redman, A., Wiek, A., & Barth, M. (2021). Current practice of assessing students’ sustainability competencies – a review of tools. Sustainability Science, vol. 16, pp. 117-135.

Wiek, A., Withycombe, L., & Redman, C. L. (2011). Key competencies in sustainability: a reference framework for academic program development. Sustainability science, 6, 203-218.

Wiek, A., Bernstein, M. J., Foley, R. W., Cohen, M., Forrest, N., Kuzdas, C., … & Keeler, L. W. (2015). Operationalising competencies in higher education for sustainable development. In Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development (pp. 241-260). Routledge.

16/01/2025

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Concepts Literature

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Different Ways Students are Thinking About Wicked Sustainability Problems

When teaching for sustainability, we need to give students the chance to practice working with Wicked Problems (as many of us are already doing, see for example what LTH teachers are doing in air pollution courses, or a more general suggestion for introductory courses by other LTH teachers), and we as teachers need to figure out where they are at in terms of thinking about the problem itself, possible solutions, and the way there. Lönngren, Ingerman & Svanström (2017) investigate this in the context of water availability in Jordan and find four typical ways students reason.

But first, a bit more about wicked problems. When it comes to sustainability wicked problems, they are typically

difficult, if not impossible, to clearly and unambiguously to describe.
addressable in different ways that can be conflicting
changing and evolving over time, there will be not ever be an “end” when everything is solved satisfactory
unique and therefore solutions cannot be reused or even generalized
tangled up in different value systems, so that approaches are often evaluated very differently by different people

So, in short, they are a mess (but one nice approach in higher education quality management summarised here). If we want to teach approaching wicked sustainability problems, we first need to understand how students think about them. Lönngren et al. (2017) do that based on 10 in-depth interview, and in that context find 4 different ways students discuss the problems (but sometimes switching between different ways within the same interview and topic).

I redrew their figure (see above), and in a nutshell, the four ways they find are

A: Simplify and avoid. Students see the problem as “problematic” and cannot describe it a lot more concretely than that, and they are not sure what a solution would look like or how to get there, but they expect one solution.

B Divide & control. Students describe a big problem that can be taken apart into smaller, independent components that they then address individually and put together as one big solution.

C. Isolate & succumb. Students see the problem as a system of interconnected parts, which they then address as if they were independently, but they realise that putting the solutions together does not actually solve the problem.

D. Integrate & balance. The problem is a system of interconnected parts, and it is approached as an interconnected systems of parts of both problems and solutions.

I find it really helpful to see these four ways (even though, of course, they are only based on how 10 students responded to a specific topic in an interview situation, so they are probably not generalisable). Nevertheless, it is useful to think about how students generally approach problems we confront them with, because this then helps us to scaffold instruction. It is not clear from just knowing how students talk about a problem what that would mean in terms of scaffolding, but maybe a first step would be to spend more time and discussions on the actual problem descriptions so all students understand and appreciate the “lots of smaller, interconnected problems” part. For example, letting students describe it themselves and prompting difficulties of “but when will the problem be solved?”, “how do you think about the neighbouring country and the effect it is going to have on them?”, etc, depending on what facets of the problem we might want to highlight, and only moving on from that step once the complexity of the problem seems to be appreciated. Of course, how that plays out depends completely on the context. But being aware of different ways students might potentially use might help us recognise where they need more time, reflection, support.

Lönngren, J., Ingerman, Å., & Svanström, M. (2017). Avoid, control, succumb, or balance: Engineering students’ approaches to a wicked sustainability problem. Research in Science Education, 47, 805-831.

01/12/2024

Mirjam Glessmer

This entry was posted in

Literature

Comments

0 Comments Leave a comment

Looking Back – Looking Ahead: Final Task Force Meeting of 2024

Task Force sits around conference table. Picture.

Throughout our lives, transitions between old and new mark the passage of time, reminding us of the inevitability of change and the opportunities they bring. Too little do we spend the time to pause and reflect during this time of transition, like the changing of a calendar year… or something even more profound. It was this sentiment that guided our agenda at our final Task Force meeting of 2024.

On 18 November 2024, the Task Force gathered for its seventh meeting since its inception. The Task Force meets during each semester to receive information and provide input that guides the work of the Teaching for Sustainability initiative. A representative from every Faculty is invited to join the Task Force. Held in the “Stora konferensrummet” at the Ecology Building, this meeting reflected on our collective achievements while setting our sights on priorities for 2025. From sharing updates across faculties to discussing strategies for embedding sustainability into higher education, the session was both reflective and forward-looking.

Updates & Achievements

Our meeting began with participants sharing updates from their respective departments and faculties. Some highlights included:

At the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS) is celebrating the launch of its new master’s programme, Climate Change and Society, while also wrapping up its online course Agenda 2030: Knowing, Measuring, Leading. There’s hope to transform this course into a MOOC, ensuring continued access to its materials.
At the Faculty of Law, efforts are underway to integrate sustainability throughout the master’s programme European Business Law, exemplifying cross-disciplinary integration.
At the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Theology, the Department of Communication and Media shared plans to create a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on social sustainability with funding provided by EduLab.

Prioritising Community and Communication

A recurring theme in our discussion was the importance of clear and effective communication as a means to build a community of support. While some find email the best method for communication, others rely on platforms like Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, or newsletters. Moving forward, we aim to harness a mix of these approaches, expanding our current reach among teaching staff at Lund University. Moreover, we propose more social events for community-building, engagement, and support.

We also brainstormed creative ways to engage students, such as leveraging Lund University’s Instagram accounts to feature student interviews on their sustainability learning journeys. We recognise that students’ experiences and expectations can be a significant motivating factor if this information reaches decision-makers, who are currently underrepresented in our community.

Challenges and Commitments for 2025

Looking ahead to 2025, the Task Force is committed to addressing both persistent challenges and emerging opportunities for advancing education for sustainability at Lund University.

A critical priority is securing resources to sustain and expand our efforts. This includes advocating collaboratively for institutional support from university leadership and emphasising the importance of both financial backing and recognition for sustainability-related teaching initiatives. To this end, an open letter is being drafted to bring these needs to management, highlighting the value of education for sustainability in attracting students, enhancing Lund University’s global standing, and addressing the concerns raised by teaching staff as well as students in their open letter to rectors at Swedish universities and colleges.

Read the students’ open letter – slu.se (In Swedish)

Another focus area is fostering stronger cross-departmental and faculty-wide collaboration. Many of our faculties still operate in silos, and we aim to strengthen communication channels to connect educators meaningfully across disciplines. Strategies include hosting lunch seminars at departments, developing accessible communication materials, and organising events that bring students and staff together to discuss sustainability challenges and solutions.

Embedding sustainability into course syllabi remains a key challenge, particularly ensuring that these efforts result in meaningful changes. To address this, we plan to engage more actively with deans and heads of departments through direct conversations and tailored workshops. Establishing long-term partnerships with pedagogical developers and expanding the Task Force membership to include other strategic groups will be important.

Lastly, we aspire to nurture the constructive and inspiring atmosphere within the Task Force. We will prioritise sharing good practices, structuring meetings around thematic and strategic discussions, and leveraging cross-university initiatives like the implementation of the LU Pedagogical Recognition Programme, Agenda 2030 Graduate School, as well as partnerships with EUGLOH and U21.

Looking Ahead

With the changing of a calendar year, we invite a moment of reflection. I often recall the wise words of Dougald Hine, who writes and speaks eloquently on living during the end of the world as we know it. He advocates for choices that 1) salvage the good things; 2) mourn what we cannot take with us; 3) notice the things that never were good; and 4) look for dropped threads from the past that still work. So, looking ahead, what good things do we want to take forward with us? What practices do we wish to leave behind? And, what new approaches do we wish to adopt in the future?

Answering these questions may feel deeply personal, though, I find it also feels deeply empowering, especially when shared with friends and colleagues. With this in mind, we always want the initiative to be a welcoming and supportive place. Thus, we welcome ideas and collaborations. If you’re interested in joining our efforts, contact Terese Thoni (terese.thoni@cec.lu.se) at the Sustainability Forum

By focusing on these areas in 2025, we aim to strengthen our collective efforts, knowing that meaningful change takes time, persistence, and collaboration. Together, we’ll continue building a community of teachers who support and inspire one another in navigating the complexities of sustainability in higher education. Thanks to all that have participated in making this community what it is, including those in attendance at the final Task Force meeting of 2024! Cheers to a new year!

Those Present:

Ann Åkerman, Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS)/Sustainability Forum
Carina Fasth, Department of Physics
Ebba Malmqvist, Planetary Health, Department of Laboratory Medicine
Marja-Liisa Öberg, Faculty of Law
Markus Gunneflo, Faculty of Law
Michael Bossetta, Department of Communication
Mirjam Glessmer, Centre för Engineering Education
Rhiannon Pugh, Department of Design Sciences
Sara Andersson, Division for Higher Education Development (AHU)
Steven Curtis, Division for Higher Education Development (AHU) – meeting facilitator
Susanne Brokop, Department of Health Sciences
Terese Thoni, Sustainability Forum – meeting minutes
Thomas Hickmann, Department of Political Science