SBA13+ESD+2010-2011

							                                    OUDE PGCE Geography 2012/2013

          SBA 13: Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
Purposes

This SBA is designed to help you engage with ESD in geography. This involves teachers making important
decisions about pedagogy, subject matter, the broad purpose of education, all in the context of teachers’
personal views about sustainable development and ‘the future’.

Tasks

These questions are designed to be put to your Geography Mentor or other geography teacher/s in your
department. They can’t be covered ‘on the hoof’, so arrange time to meet.
Please keep notes of your discussions and bring them to the OUDE sessions on Friday 3 December for the
usual reasons.
.

    1. Please identify examples (in any KS) of how you include the concept of sustainable development in
       a lesson or sequence of lessons or as the main focus of a unit/scheme of work.
    2. Are any teaching techniques particularly good for teaching about sustainable development? Why?
    3. Have you linked - or are you planning to link - classroom work about sustainable development with
       any issues currently affecting the local (or wider) community?
       If so, please can you describe what you did and why you did this?
    4. Do you think the Sustainable Schools Initiative and Framework was a good idea (it has been
       withdrawn by the Coalition Government)? Why/why not?
    5. Some teachers are keen to use their teaching about sustainable development ‘to make a difference’ to
       pupils’ lives and change their environmental behaviour. How do they justify this educationally?
       What are your views about this?
    6. Please look at these four possible approaches (also given on a separate sheet for the teacher) to
       teaching about sustainable development, and then say which most reflects your approach. Why do
       your prefer this approach?



A. Not for us. We don’t actually feel that we contribute much to education for sustainable development and neither do
we really want to. It is not something that we have been trained for, and to force geography into this mould is to blur the
boundaries of a well-established curriculum subject.

B. Making changes. We could contribute more to education for sustainable development than we do and this is an idea
we are thinking about. A minor/major shift in the emphasis of our teaching would make this possible. This could
enhance both our geography teaching and make an important contribution to the understanding of sustainability

C. Doing it now. We are very aware of how geography can contribute to education for sustainable development and we
already teach in a way that promotes these principles in the classroom. Indeed, we feel that issues of sustainability lie at
the heart of good geography teaching and always will.

D. Stealing the scene. In our geography teaching we make a significant and conscious contribution to education for
sustainable development and we now intend to give this an even higher profile. This involves the head and governors
publicly recognising geography as the prime deliverer of education for sustainable development.
                           Info sheet for teacher answering questions



A. Not for us. We don’t actually feel that we contribute much to education for sustainable development and
neither do we really want to. It is not something that we have been trained for, and to force geography into
this mould is to blur the boundaries of a well-established curriculum subject

B. Making changes. We could contribute more to education for sustainable development than we do and
this is an idea we are thinking about. A minor/major shift in the emphasis of our teaching would make this
possible. This could enhance both our geography teaching and make an important contribution to the
understanding of sustainability

C. Doing it now. We are very aware of how geography can contribute to education for sustainable
development and we already teach in a way that promotes these principles in the classroom. Indeed, we feel
that issues of sustainability lie at the heart of good geography teaching and always will

D. Stealing the scene. In our geography teaching we make a significant and conscious contribution to
education for sustainable development and we now intend to give this an even higher profile. This involves
the head and governors publicly recognising geography as the prime deliverer of education for sustainable
development