To what extent do you think that education for sustainable development is valuable?
Do you agree with Haigh (2005) that Geography is best placed to deliver this curriculum?
What are your feelings about this module?
‘The goal of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014, DESD), for which UNESCO is the lead agency, is to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning.’ -United Nations
As the strain on resources throughout the world continues, the need for education about sustainable development is more of a requirement now than ever. The United Nations has set out a worldwide plan in which individual countries are given their own goals about the teaching of sustainable development. These individual goals for countries are essential as different issues arise regarding a country.
Some views will differ on whether or not sustainable development should be taught in education. Some theorists believe that global population is irrelevant and that technologies will continue to extend enabling us to ‘feed the world’ with what resources we have. Whereas others disregard this and believe that the world is over the optimum population.
Would teaching people about sustainable development actually be worth while? With reference to this course I think that it would be well worth while teaching others about sustainability. Although a lot of the subject taught is prior knowledge for me, it has encouraged me to think about my impact on the world. One person can make a difference if every other one person chose the right options too.
Had I not chosen A Level geography my knowledge about sustainability would be limited, and I’m sure that many children in education currently have no understanding of what sustainability is.
Making people aware of the current issues that surround their futures could make them more willing to change their opinions and others in order to set out better lives for the future.
Although sustainability is linked to many subjects taught in education geography is probably the most relevant to sustainable development. Sustainability is of course about our world, our population, our ability to feed our growing population and simple day to day activities which is geography. But delivering this idea of having to cut back on paper, walk- don’t drive will give people negative impressions of what the subject of geography is all about.
http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=27234&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html -United Nations
