Last week, we had the pleasure to meet with Alexandra Häglund, one of the new team members at UTRI, a group dedication to transformation research at Umeå University. UTRI have been helping us to organise the symposium about sustainability competence in higher education that will take place in February 2024. The deadline has passed for submitting abstracts to present at the symposium and lots of wonderfully diverse international applicants have shown interest in this work.
It is great to see so many people engaging with sustainability education to collaborate and contribute to new communities around the world. We look forward to meeting you all in person soon. We have been working hard to organise the different practicalities of the symposium and we would like to thank Prof. Walter Leal at HAW Hamburg University and all that have collaborated to help with these tasks we have ahead of us.
Through a network set up by Kent Williams at Dalhousie university, I also caught up with another great international group of inspiring researchers this week. The aim of the group is to put ideas into action and to create opportunities for researchers, teachers and students to work together with transforming sustainability education. I am excited to meet with and listen to the interdisciplinary group in person and eager to take part in the future activities that we plan. Thank you everyone for making this group possible.
I have also taken part in a community of lecturers at Swedish universities to help co-facilitate a course in higher education didactic for sustainability (HEDS). The course runs in the spring and provides an opportunity for lectures to learn through problem-based learning methods. As a student of the course last year, I found the role of facilitator quite fascinating and was invited to take part as co-facilitator in the next round of the course. I am looking forward to being part of such a stimulating group of engaged collaboration and to meeting the new group of international student/lecturers.
Support for putting ideas into action can come through many avenues. There are so many great communities of passionate people working to overcome the sustainability challenges experienced, with the aim to work towards transformations of the systems that have led us to where we are today. This week’s reflection questions: What do we transform in education to build capacity for sustainability competence? How do we transform education to build capacity for sustainability competence? Why do we transform education to build capacity for sustainability competence?
Leave a Reply