Transforming Education for Sustainability: Discourses on Justice, Inclusion, and Authenticity

This book investigates how educators and researchers in the sciences, social sciences, and the arts, connect concepts of sustainability to work in their fields of study and in the classrooms where they teach the next generation. Sustainability, with a focus on justice, authenticity and inclusivity, can be integrated into many different courses or disciplines even if it is beyond their historical focus. The narratives describe sustainability education in the classroom, the laboratory, and the field (broadly defined) and how the authors navigate the complexities of particular sustainability issues, such as climate change, water quality, soil health, biodiversity, resource use, and education in authentic ways that convey their complexity, the sociopolitical context, and their hopes for the future. The chapters explore how faculty engage students in learning about sustainability and the ways in which working at the edge of what we know about sustainability can be a significant source ofengagement, motivation, and challenge. The authors discuss how they create learning experiences that foster democratic practices in which students are not just following protocols, but have a stake in creative decision-making, collecting and analysing data, and posing authentic questions. They also describe what happens when students are not just passively receiving information, but actively analysing, debating, dialoguing, arguing from evidence, and constructing nuanced understandings of complex socioscientific sustainability issues. The narratives include undergraduate student perspectives on what it means to engage in sustainability research and learning, how students navigate the complexities and contradictions inherent in sustainability issues, what makes for authentic, empowering learning experiences, and how students are encouraged to persevere in the field.

This is an open access book.

María S. Rivera Maulucci joined the faculty at Barnard College in 2004 and is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Education. Prior to Barnard, she served as Director of the Science & Technology Professional Development Center for Region One in the Bronx and as the Director of Urban Forestry for the Environmental Action Coalition. Her expertise in STEM pedagogy and teacher education draws on 16 years of teaching mathematics, science, and technology at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels. She has worked with both school and community-based education programs. Her interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on how inservice and preservice teachers learn to teach for social justice, particularly in STEM fields, and the role of language, identity, and emotions in teacher development. Professor Rivera was the Principal Investigator for the Barnard Noyce Teacher Education Scholars Program (BNTSP) and Co-PI for the Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates Program, both funded by the National Science Foundation. She is currently the Co-PI for a Carnegie Foundation grant, Joint Barnard-American Museum of Natural History Summer STEM Teaching Experiences for Undergraduates, a project that provides STEM pedagogical training for undergraduates who teach math and science summer enrichment courses for high school youth. She has served on the Board of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) and on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Research in Science Teaching and Cultural Studies of Science Education. She has been a strong supporter of diversity, inclusion, and sustainability initiatives at the college and in professional organizations, including NARST and the Association for Science Teacher Education.

 

Stephanie Pfirman is a Foundation Professor at the School of Sustainability and a Senior Sustainability Scientist at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and Innovation at Arizona State University. Before joining ASU in 2018, Pfirman was Hirschorn Professor of Environmental and Applied Sciences and co-Chair of the Department of Environmental Science at Barnard College. She held a joint appointment with Columbia University’s Earth Institute and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences as an Adjunct Research Scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.  Pfirman focuses on understanding and responding to the changing Arctic, developing innovative approaches to formal and informal education, and exploring the intersection between diversity and interdisciplinarity. Pfirman’s Arctic research addresses implications of changes in sea ice origin, drift, and melt patterns, including defining the Last Ice Area, recently established as a protected area by Canada. She is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. As a former co-PI of a National Science Foundation Advancing Women in the Sciences (ADVANCE) grant, past President of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors, and Chair of the Columbia Earth Institute's Faculty Development Committee, Pfirman has helped to understand and foster the career trajectories of women and interdisciplinary scholars. Pfirman co-designed EcoChains: Arctic Life, a card-game that earned a Parent’s Choice award. A longtime advocate for action on climate change, as a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, Pfirman co-developed one of the first climate change exhibitions, "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast," produced jointly with the American Museum of Natural History.    

 

Hilary S. Callahan, an Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Biology, joined the faculty at Barnard College in 1999 and today serves as department chair and directs the Arthur Ross Greenhouse; she is also an affiliate of Columbia University's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. She learned her early love for nature from knowledgeable relatives, and gained her identity as a botanist and activist during her undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral years in New Haven, Connecticut, Madison, Wisconsin, and Knoxville, Tennessee, where she fostered friendships with scholars across disciplines and with labor activists, grassroots conservationists, community journalists, and progressive politicians. Today, she resides in The Bronx. She has received multiple National Science Foundation funding awards for her research projects and mentoring of experiences in STEM research for undergraduates, including UNPAK: Undergraduates Phenotyping Arabidopsis Knockouts, described in this volume. Her writings in plant ecological genetics focus on plant responses to environmental change. As part of the Barnard Teaches digital initiative, she created an interdisciplinary course in botany and its history in collaboration with the New York Botanical Garden and the Columbia Center for Science and Society. Over the years, she has contributed to the Barnard Noyce Teacher Scholar Program (BNTSP), founded Barnard's Beckman Scholars Program, and served on many sustainability committees and working groups. Since 2018 she has served as President of the Board of Directors of Black Rock Forest in Cornwall, New York.