Last week we were invited to take part in a workshop follow-up to a teacher in higher education course in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The idea was that all teachers that wanted to take part could discuss their own experiences and plans for advancing their ESD and build a network for ESD collaborations. In the autumn, we will take part in a new series of workshops and seminars that will be a space for co-creation for teachers across the campus.

We had an interesting afternoon sharing experiences about the activities we have actually applied, tested and developed. Some have presented their stories to colleagues in their departments to encourage others to take part in advancing ESD. Some have worked on designing new master programs with sustainability as the target and fully integrated into the curriculum. Others have tested out ideas on single classes and presented their experiences at teacher conferences. All had taken steps to do something.

Reflecting on what had been done and cultivating new ideas, we plan to continue the workshops as a new series to encourage engagement and build an interdisciplinary network for ESD. Although this workshop series will start at Umeå university it is a network that Gert-Olof and I would like to expand to spaces in the region, across the nation and internationally. This week, steps have been taken to create, experiement, test and learn for sustainability together with our experiment of the website advancingesd.com. We look at ESD as an international challenge, therefore international exchange of experiences are vital.

As we left the workshop, we were inspired to sit down and map out our ideas for a new and exciting conceptual paper about language in ESD. We will update you on its developments as it progresses. It brings us great joy to see people leave the room motivated to do more.

Thank you to everyone. It was an encouraging and great activity to take part in. See you all soon again!