Advancing Education For Sustainability

We caught up with Krzysztof Szczepaniak, adjunct professor and director of the sustainability centre, and Jolanta Mrozek-Kwiatkowska, Manager of sustainability at the sustainability centre, both at the University of Gdańsk. We discussed a project that includes three universities in Gedansk: the University of Gedansk, the Technical University and the Medical University, which collaborate in teaching for sustainability. The universities want to increase the involvement of teachers and students and the implementation of the sustainable development goals. There are several activities, including workshops for teachers and students, and starting pilot projects in the SDGs.

Both Krzysztof Szczepaniak and Jolanta Mrozek-Kwiatkowska are also in cooperation with 9 univeristies that take part in a cross univeristy project: University of Cadiz (Spain) are Coordinator, University of Brest (France), University of Kiel (Germany), University of Gdansk (Poland), University of Split (Croatia), University of Malta (Malta), University of Naples Parthenope (Italy), University of Algarve (Portugal), NORD University (Norway). Support to advance their education for sustainbility is growing between the univeristies. So far, the universities will give the same courses to provide one full track for bachelor stduentents and one full track for master students. There will be a possibility for the students to travel around and study at any of these universities. 

We are grateful to have the opportunity to present our tool to those involved in this project and to map the students’ mindset competence for sustainability. We look forward to learning from the universities’ experiences in such a wonderful collaboration project. With the mindset map as a basis, we will give a workshop about how to interpretate the results for the group to be able to put their ideas into action.

Eva Knekta, an associate professor in science education and education for sustainability at Umeå University, also spoke with us about the projects she has been working on with our local council. Together with Annika Manni, associate professor in science education at umeå university, Eva Knekta has been working on a project to help facilitate education for sustainability in upper secondary schools in Umeå. The project has focused on what has been taught, how it is taught and why it is being taught (the didactic) through the perspectives of the organisation of the schools.

The aim of the project is to create a dialogue of support for the schools and have found that they need to learn from the students’ perspective to gain a holistic approach the support they can provide. The experience of the project so far is that it takes time to gather information from the students. They have been providing feedback through conversation and have revealed some information about what they know and what the students want to learn. In the next stages of the project, the aim is to put the students in focus and to create a culture where listening to the students is at the centre. We look forward to contributing to lcoal action-facilitators of transformations in education for sustainability to collaborate on the whole student approach.

In the discussion forum this week, we ask: What collaborations have helped you to transform your education for sustainability? How have collaborations inspired your work to transform your education for sustainability? Which local, national and international collaborations (couldor do) provide you with the support to transform your education for sustainability?