Education for sustainability: its implication on built environment studies

Abstract

Sustainability has become a key in every development area. In order to promote sustainable development the education plays a major role. Identifying the significance of education for sustainability, UNESCO declared a decade for Education for Sustainable Development from 2005-2014. With this initiation „Education for Sustainable Development‟ (ESD) was widely discussed, critically analysed and many countries have attempted to include ESD into main stream education systems. Even though commonly referred as ESD its Implications are varied among different disciplines and identifying the particular issues may pave way to educate in a sustainable manner. Within built environment studies it has become more important since 1/6th of the world's fresh water use, 1/4th of all wood harvests, 2/5th of all material flows, and 2/5th of all energy flows are utilised by the buildings. Sustainability could be broadly defined as use of resources that would safeguard its security for use of future generations. The strategies and methodologies to utilise within built environment could be different and the implications for educating therefore also need to suit the nature of the activity. Incorporating of ESD into curriculum is a key aspect and level of intervention, identifying learning outcomes, training of teachers, teaching methods and assessments are some vital areas to consider. Preparing learning outcomes is one of the important tasks that could immensely impact the education program. There the similarities are found among the existing learning outcomes that have been written for ESD that promote an attitude change. But a need is also seen to formulate specific LOs to address different subject matters. Therefore integration of LOs into curriculum that addresses specific issues pertaining to Built environment studies could provide favourable results. The paper attempts to discuss the current developments of ESD in understanding the learning outcomes suitable for educating in Built environment studies.Sustainability has become a key in every development area. In order to promote sustainable development the education plays a major role. Identifying the significance of education for sustainability, UNESCO declared a decade for Education for Sustainable Development from 2005-2014. With this initiation „Education for Sustainable Development‟ (ESD) was widely discussed, critically analysed and many countries have attempted to include ESD into main stream education systems. Even though commonly referred as ESD its Implications are varied among different disciplines and identifying the particular issues may pave way to educate in a sustainable manner. Within built environment studies it has become more important since 1/6th of the world's fresh water use, 1/4th of all wood harvests, 2/5th of all material flows, and 2/5th of all energy flows are utilised by the buildings. Sustainability could be broadly defined as use of resources that would safeguard its security for use of future generations. The strategies and methodologies to utilise within built environment could be different and the implications for educating therefore also need to suit the nature of the activity. Incorporating of ESD into curriculum is a key aspect and level of intervention, identifying learning outcomes, training of teachers, teaching methods and assessments are some vital areas to consider. Preparing learning outcomes is one of the important tasks that could immensely impact the education program. There the similarities are found among the existing learning outcomes that have been written for ESD that promote an attitude change. But a need is also seen to formulate specific LOs to address different subject matters. Therefore integration of LOs into curriculum that addresses specific issues pertaining to Built environment studies could provide favourable results. The paper attempts to discuss the current developments of ESD in understanding the learning outcomes suitable for educating in Built environment studies.