We have been surrounded by creative minds these last few weeks. Dr. Jos Eussen inspired us with his telling of the first transdisciplinary class in the Hyperion project that took place earlier this year. His overall feelings about the experience were largely positive with encouraging feedback from the students and all involved.
The students were able to explore through thematic transdisciplinary inquiry, letting their curiosity drive their learning experience. Oral discussions, written reflections, projects and field trips helped to combine knowledge from science and practice. Several organisations and locations were involved in the field trip and diverse teachers supported the students’ learning through interdisciplinary knowledge.
As expected, the challenges to bring about such a project lie in the expectations and systems of university organisations. There are always experiences to learn from and areas to develop and we look forward to being a part of this fantastic future of sustainability education. Thank you, Jos, for reaching out to us to join this wonderful journey and include us in future developments.
We also met with pedagogical developer and “writer and poet” Johan Landgren at Kristianstad University. His expertise are in literacy, writing and reading, and he has begun to delve deeper into sustainability literacy. Johan’s passion for creative writing in poetry and essays inspires his drive to create interdisciplinary opportunities through narratives about the world and the future.
We discussed how literature can be a transformative expereince and should be used across disciplines to access important intrapersonal reflection. Thank you, Johan for your creative ideas for future collaborations. We look forward to speaking again soon to plan some exciting workshops. It will be good to hear more about your work in sustainability education with your colleagues at Kristianstad University.
Anders Rosén, associate professor at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, also reached out to discuss his work and create opportunities for collaboration. Anders has worked with sustainability education for many years. He has experience in working with co-creation learning experiences in engineering programs. More recently he has been working as a pedagogical developer to help address sustainability education across disciplines.
Anders has been mapping the work done across programs at KTH, revealing where sustainability education is strong and where improvements can be made. This important work has inspired some great activity in sustainability education within several projects that apply the key sustainability competencies. We discussed the importance of intrapersonal competence and the activities that have been applied to classes in order to help students develop this important capacity. Thank you, Anders, for reaching out and for collaborating on our joint goals to communicate work like this across networks. We look forward to future discussions and inspirations.
If you are involved in transdisciplinary education, would you like to share your stories? What projects would you like to share with others to help create future opportunities in sustainability education? What book have you read that might inspire the intrapersonal thinking tools that you want to teach? Do you have a creative idea in sustainability education that others could enjoy too?
Leave a Reply