Enhancing Ecocentric Environmental Attitudes: An Experience of Science Teaching to Inspire Students to Value Trees

Deforestation is a global issue. Education has a fundamental role to play in this context. In this regard, the direction and effectiveness of educational practices should focus on the empowerment of students in ecocentric environmental attitudes. A key point in education for environmental sustainability is pedagogical approaches focused on the development of critical and reflective thinking. In this context, objectified research was developed in the (re)conceptualization of the “living being”, with thermogram didacticization, as a way to develop egalitarian feelings of the need for similar attitudes among living beings. The study was developed in an action-research context. The pedagogical-didactic intervention was within the scope of the “Natural Sciences” curricular unit of the “Basic Education” degree at a Portuguese Institution. After a pedagogical-didactic intervention, the reconceptualization of “living being” was observed in these students, presenting, now, a reflexive argument concerning the ecocentric environmental attitudes regarding the “living being” – the tree vs. animal, highlighting the importance that the thermographic images had in the (re)significance of their “new look” regarding the tree.

Implementing a Spiritual and Moral Education Program for Maths Teachers

Modern researchers focus on spiritual and moral education only of children, particularly in the humanities. In this study, we develop and implement a program for the spiritual and moral education of 24 mathematics teachers aged between 30 and 65 years and assess its effectiveness. The program's effectiveness was assessed based on previously developed psychodiagnostic tools by expanding spiritual and moral development characteristics with new components. Diagnostics of the primary state of personal characteristics of spirituality was conducted before the experimental training and after implementing the program. We analyzed data using the Wilcoxon T-test, which revealed a significant increase in value-semantic, communicative, reflexive, motivational, and critical parameters. A qualitative analysis was conducted by evaluating the further research activities of 60 % of the students. Our program can be used in postgraduate education in a wide range of specialties and areas of training worldwide. The program can provide advanced training in solving spiritual and moral education issues for mathematics teachers.

Ecologized Collaborative Online International Learning: Tackling Wicked Sustainability Problems Through Education for Sustainable Development

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is increasingly embedded in higher education (HE) due to the current emphasis on tackling the environmental crisis. Similarly, Civic Society Organisations are expanding their mobilization and practical action in communities. These approaches can reach almost all people on the planet and open avenues for effective global action around sustainable development. It is important to connect both learners and develop agents of change in society. In this paper, we focus on how digital resources can support democratization of knowledge production and improve equitable citizen participation in ESD and practical action at the local and global levels. The paper investigates structures, processes and components that support transnational collaboration in digital spaces, particularly, around the enhancement of sustainable environmental attitudes. We use Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) as a basis to develop EcoCOIL as a versatile model for expanding coalition building tools and principles, to promote environmental citizenship and develop multi-layered communities of practice. Stakeholders include university students and staff, technical experts, business leaders and entrepreneurs, social innovators, policy makers, Community Social Organisations (CSOs), etc. EcoCOIL focuses on co-created wisdom sharing across intercultural, intergenerational and transdisciplinary actors; it brings an innovative, participatory angle to curriculum development by integration of lifelong learning principles and practical facilitation of sustainable behavior within communities in real time.

What Does Education for Sustainable Development Offer in Initial Teacher Training? A Systematic Review

Promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in higher education implies an improvement and quality in the exercise of responsible citizenship, being the key in the training of future teachers as the main agent of change and transition towards sustainability in society. The aim of this study is to collect and analyze scientific evidence on the attitudes, competences and training of future teachers towards ESD. Therefore, a qualitative methodology has been carried out based on a systematic review of the most important scientific databases (WoS and Scopus). One of the most interesting results shows that there are favorable attitudes of our education students towards sustainability and their commitment to the environment. However, we can conclude that, in the training of our teachers, there is a deficit in the development of professional skills needed to implement ESD (teaching practice) to contribute to social welfare.

More Personal Knowledge for More Sustainable Higher Education

The article aims at considering the characteristics of the Anthropocene era from a broader perspective and emhasizing the possibilities of pedagogy to reduce the current unsustain-ability of higher education. The relationships between human and nature are affected by the wicked problems. In particular, they are influenced by intermingling of anthropocentrism, egocentrism and egoism, which affect these relationships by causing changes in the human being, i.e., changes in sensitivity and sensibility occur that are naturally necessary for human adaptation to the environment. For the case study, we have used the processes taking place at the phenomenon level, which are known as the first-person perspective (1PP) characterized by an active and dynamic connection with the environment. It should be noted that 1PP cannot be observed from a distance, as there are a number of interrelated processes that begin with the effects of the environment, the formation of the “self” and the formation of the self-image. It follows that complex consciousness in the 1PP is implemented within an egocentric reference system, where experience is structured according to the image of the human body. The article will present the findings of 1PP study obtained by performing two tasks: (1) development of a personally significant view of a 1PP researcher on the phenomenon of sustainability from an egocentric perspective and (2) involvement of the 1PP researcher in adaptive learning suitable for pandemic conditions. We would like to stress that the case study has been developed as our reaction to the intensification of unsustainable development in the relationship between nature and human, which has been initiated and maintained by the tangle of Anthropocene problems. From the pedagogical perspective, we looked for an opportunity to use the basis of the natural origin of human and nature relations to maintain more integrated activities and more personal knowledge, so that the development of more sustainable higher education could be promoted by means of personal experience. Through the pedagogical lenses of phenomenology, we identified the need to reduce the impact of the Anthropocene tangle through the use of more natural methods. We also recognized the need to use the 1PP and adaptive learning opportunities more carefully. In this way, pedagogy can gain new experiences for a more holistic understanding of individual experience and enhance the use of the unique abilities of adaptive learning to prototype more personal knowledge in order to build more sustainable higher education.

Making Change Visible – An Explorative Case Study of Dealing With Climate Change Deniers in Forest Education

This case study addresses the issue of climate change denial among students in their first year of vocational education. It was possible to shake the belief that man-made climate change was not happening, through letting students measure the potential of natural forest vegetation and compare their findings with those gathered by their peers nine years earlier. The comparison revealed that old forests had turned into ecosystems, which were adapted for dryer warmer climates. For education for sustainable development, forest education and biology lessons offer the opportunity to establish a long term project, in which peer-to-peer-learning over generations of students is possible, with a high rate of acceptance of the results generated by the former students.

The Professional Development of Academic Staff in Higher Education Institution

Higher education is given increasing recognition by national governments and international agencies throughout the world to become a crucial incentive for sustainable development goals. In the national development of intellectual force at present, the Vietnam policy of education and training, which is of great importance, is the decisive factor for the economic growth and social development as set out by the government. Therefore, the educational development is the responsibility of both the government and the society. It is now clear that the academic staff in higher education institutions is the core force, playing a decisive role in ensuring the quality of higher education as in the case of the International University – Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City. The paper investigated the research studies by the university academic staff through their annual publications and the number of lecturers with Doctoral degrees and professorship. The results showed their research studies contributed to the development of the institution in particular, and at the same time predicted how much the stakeholders benefited from this in general. This study may contribute to developing the quality of higher education institutions regarding the promotion of international publications by the higher education faculties.

The IraunIK and IraunIR Questionnaires: Assessment of Transversal Competencies for Sustainability

This article shows the design and validation of two questionnaires addressed to students and teachers. The aim is to find out their perception about the competencies and learning outcomes for sustainability that students develop through their participation in the international cross-border project of the Bordeaux-Euskampus “Ocean i3: Blue Skills for the Development of the Blue Economy in the Basque-Aquitaine Cross-Border Coast”. The study population consisted of all the participants of the project: 37 students majoring in Biology, Law, Advertising, Business Administration and Management, Pedagogy, Criminology, Nursing, Engineering and Sports Sciences at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and the University of Bordeaux (UBx), and 33 undergraduate and postgraduate lecturers from both universities. The article describes the procedure followed for their validity and reliability, and annexes both questionnaires. They may be transferable to other studies that share the same or similar objectives of this study.

A Holistic Approach to Education for Sustainability: Ecofeminism as a Tool to Enhance Sustainability Attitudes in Pre-service Teachers

To achieve an effective Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), teachers should possess appropriate sustainability attitudes to transmit those values to their future students. In this article, a holistic educational intervention around the ecofeminist movement is described and its impact on the sustainability attitudes of 188 pre-service teachers is assessed. The quantitative results with a validated questionnaire reveal an initial high level of sustainability awareness and a statistically significant increase in the environmental dimension after the educational intervention. In addition, the qualitative analysis of the stories and activities for children prepared by the students in a process of didactic transposition confirms their ability to effectively integrate different competencies around a topic. Due to their status as future educators in the early stages of the system, pre-service teachers are relevant to disseminate a holistic view of ESD and we can conclude that ecofeminism is a thematic node that integrates key concept and attitudinal content to achieve that goal.