Empowering Learners to Become Change Makers Through Sustainability Education

By Ashley Durdle, VERSO International School

A growing trend over the years in professional learning communities in education is a focus on developing “leaders of tomorrow” as a primary goal. This endeavor can seem somewhat daunting at the outset, as our rapidly evolving global landscape no longer provides the same discrete indicators of what a successful career might mean in the years ahead as it did in earlier decades. Learners need less concrete, technical knowledge now that most information is available at the click of a button. Instead, transferable skills are needed that foster quick turnaround and innovative people who view obstacles as inevitable, necessary steps on the path to their future success.

Given many of the challenges facing our world stem from a consumerist lifestyle - bigger, better, more, disposable, and so on - sustainability education is increasingly recognized in the field of education as the answer we seek. It provides an alternative pathway to a healthy, bright, and holistic future. Sustainability education no longer solely entails learning about the environment; it now encompasses a broad range of topics, including environmental science, social responsibility, ethics, advocacy, economics, and global citizenship. In essence, it focuses on systems thinking, prioritizing addressing the root cause rather than superficial symptoms, while developing an intrinsic attitude of stewardship above all else.

So how do we introduce sustainability education that goes beyond disseminating information on interesting facts and figures, ensuring that we make a sustainable impact on our learners? This is a current challenge for many educators who recognize the importance and necessity of integrating sustainability into project-based learning. To achieve genuine impact through this type of education, it is crucial to prioritize development of the mindset itself, which includes and fosters empathy as a core skill, as well as critical thinking, problem solving, perspective shifting, and decision making through the lens of closed loop thinking. Furthermore, more subtle but valuable skills such as collaboration, creativity, and resilience naturally emerge as byproducts of incorporating sustainability education into any curriculum.

Considering the increasingly entrepreneurial nature of many of our learners, adopting a closedloop systems approach makes economic sense. By eliminating waste, we create an opportunity to make sustainability education tangible and accessible to our learners. Returning to the “old school” values of sharing, repairing, reusing, and recycling disrupts the consumerist mindset that has prevailed since the post-war industrial era, which significantly boosted the wealth of nations around the world. What was once considered ‘waste’ now becomes a valuable resource for creating something new, thus fueling an industry projected to be worth 4.5 trillion US Dollars by 2030.

In a world facing environmental crises, most learners have already done projects in some form or another on climate change, deforestation, plastic pollution, and resource depletion. This approach equips individuals with the knowledge to understand the interconnectedness of our environmental, social, and economic systems and empowers learners to recognize the consequences of their actions. In the end, they feel empowered to make informed decisions that consider long-term sustainability and are directly responsible for advocating for and shaping the world in which they choose to live. A continued focus on the circular economy organically leads to the formation of collaborative business networks, which is a significant shift in our perspectives on achieving balance in our approaches to the future. By creatively integrating these principles into our educational systems and fostering a sense of responsibility for the environment and society at large in our learners, we take the first step towards lasting change. This sense of cultivating responsibility for the immediate community and resources in our learners’ lives creates a template for addressing the systemic obstacles they face in creating lasting change in the world.

Learners are taught to challenge prevailing norms and seek innovative solutions by actively maintaining their divergent thought processes. This challenges them to examine the multi-faceted implications of their choices and asks them to find ways to minimize the harm that results from the process. Engaging with certified B Corporations or B Corps, for example, provides learners with a firsthand understanding of how stakeholders are demanding higher standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability from companies. With the motto “People & the Planet before Profits,” this is a simple, tangible concept that learners can fully comprehend. They learn that their voice, their time, and money are powerful tools to bring about lasting, sustainable change in our world - real People Power!

Sustainability education emphasizes the importance of social justice and equity by encouraging learners to examine the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities, empowering them to advocate for fairness and inclusivity. This often leads to a feeling of frustration and apathy as an inevitable part of the learning process as learners grasp the extent and variety of issues afflicting our planet. By nurturing empathy and understanding and guiding learners on how to overcome these difficult and deeply human emotions, with the knowledge that the solutions lie within reach, they learn to overcome these struggles and become true future leaders dedicated to constructing a more just and sustainable society. We must educate learners on peer-to-peer processes and establishes a collaborative business network.

The concept of “grit” is well-known, and nothing better equips learners with mental and emotional resilience required for important tasks than engaging in meaningful sustainability practices. By directly integrating sustainability education into all our curricula, we are actively cultivating empathy, social responsibility, and global citizenship. Let us seize this opportunity to meet the genuine needs of our learners and prepare them for the world they will inherit. In doing so, we empower them to become the changemakers and leaders our world will always need - this kind of agency and presence