Singapore is not immune to the effects of climate change such as rising temperatures, sea-level rise and more extreme weather events. While the science of climate change is still evolving, it is important that we take urgent and necessary steps to mitigate and adapt to these challenges. Education plays a critical role, not only in raising awareness and knowledge on environmental and sustainability issues, but also in encouraging students and communities to think of innovative solutions that can drive more sustainable ways of living. Guest editor of this SingTeach issue, Dr Tricia Seow, Senior Lecturer and Assistant Head of the Humanities & Social Studies Education Academic Group at NIE, shares more about sustainability education as well as its future direction in schools today.

Sustainability Is a Global Issue

“Sustainability issues affect all of humanity, though the exact nature of the issues may differ due to the context of each place,” Dr Tricia Seow, who is also the co-chair of the Sustainability Learning Lab at NIE, says.

Taking the example of climate change, she highlights how a small tropical island state like Singapore is affected directly and indirectly by climate-related risks.

“Warming global temperatures will see Singapore experiencing changes in weather patterns with more intense rainfall. Rising sea levels due to melting ice caps and the thermal expansion of sea water will also mean potential loss of low lying land as well as floods,” she says.

Events that occur in one part of the world will have a ripple effect felt and seen by other parts of the world too, including Singapore. Singapore’s reliance on food imports, for instance, will mean that the resilience of farming in places like the Mekong Delta is of importance.

“Threats to agricultural areas such as droughts and saltwater incursion caused by climate change and changes to river systems due to dams and riverbed mining, have an impact on farmers who might decide to stop farming and move to cities in search of alternative livelihoods – an act that will affect global and regional food supplies,” she explains.

There is an urgency to understand what is happening to other people in countries across the globe, as well as the need to search for solutions to the problems they are facing.

“These solutions may mean the need to help others mitigate and adapt to climate change even though they are not in Singapore, as we live in a hyper-connected world,” she adds.

The Evolution of Sustainability Education

Tricia shares that concern for preserving the physical environment (e.g., protecting forests and nature spaces, as well as preventing pollution of the natural environment) began as early as the late 1800s. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, environmental education gained traction, with the Belgrade Charter (UNESCO, 1975) recognizing that to conserve the physical environment, the  social, cultural and political dimensions had to be addressed as well.

“Over time, the nomenclature changed to sustainability education as there was more recognition of the importance of integrating the complex inter-relationships among the physical environment and social, cultural and political aspects of societies into environmental education,” she explains.

An international resolution adopted by the United Nations (UN), the “Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014)”, emphasized the need to integrate sustainable development issues like climate change, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction into all aspects of education and learning (UNESCO, 2005). In 2015, the UN adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which not only broadened the scope of sustainable development issues, but also continued the emphasis on sustainable development through education (UN, 2015).

“In short, there has been a progression from environmental to sustainability education over time, given the increasing attention to inter-relationships among the physical and social worlds. Some might even argue that environmental education is a subset of sustainability education,” she remarks. “Most importantly, the scope of issues that can be addressed in sustainability education has also broadened such that it is relevant to most aspects of education/subjects.”

Integrating Sustainability into Education

“Schools indubitably play an important role in developing the knowledge and skills that young people need to participate in sustainability issues and work towards those UN sustainable development goals,” she affirms.

She notes how Geography was a natural fit during UNESCO’s Decade of Education for Sustainable Development as it is a discipline that addresses issues like climate change, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction. However, with the breadth of sustainable development goals today, all subjects have the capacity to tackle and engage students on sustainability issues.

“Science subjects can engage students around the science of climate change, impacts of development and climate change on ecologies. Social Studies is a key subject that educates students about governance – surely sustainable development and climate issues involve governance and how we as individuals can engage with the state on these matters. Languages and Art subjects can focus on how we communicate about sustainability issues too,” she explains.

She also emphasizes the importance of adopting a holistic and interdisciplinary approach to sustainability education and highlights how the Ministry of Education’s Eco Stewardship Programme (ESP) is one of the important building blocks in this endeavour.

“The implementation of ESP in local educational institutes has seen schools and institutes of higher learning integrating sustainable development into their curriculum, campus infrastructure, institutional culture and practices, as well as partnerships with the community,” she comments.

Navigating the Future

Reflecting further on the future direction of sustainability education, Tricia acknowledges the good work done in schools in this area. However, she notes that it is also important for school leaders and teachers to think ahead and develop more innovative pedagogies in their approach to sustainability education.

“If we teach about these issues in a technocratic and factual way, then students will treat them just like any other topic they are required to learn for assessment,” she states. “We should try to get students to understand how people in other parts of the world are already impacted by issues like climate change. For example, how do people without air-conditioning or stable water supplies cope with heatwaves and droughts, and who are the people who are losing their homes to rising sea levels?”

Not only that, she points out how it is also important that students are provided with positive examples of what people are doing to overcome these problems.

These could be in the form of innovations, community initiatives and partnerships among individuals, business and government.

“Students should be nudged to realize that problems the world is facing are not necessarily insurmountable, and that they have the power to make informed decisions and take individual and collective action,” she says with much conviction. “It would be best if students are empowered to apply these insights into felt and lived issues they themselves have witnessed and want to address.”

References

UNESCO. (1975). The Belgrade Charter: A Framework for Environmental Education. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000017772?posInSet=1&queryId=ca05e781-a295-4956-a7c2-f356c2647188

UNESCO. (2005). UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, 2005-2014. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000141629?posInSet=14&queryId=17d8b3bf-d48f-4039-a954-7eea84d602c3

United Nations. (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. https://sdgs.un.org/goals