Sustainability Education across the Lifespan

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability education is changing at a rapid pace in the context of a world experiencing increased disruption due to climate change, inequalities, and the understood interdependecies of social and ecological systems. From the advent of greater environmental awareness and international dialogue about sustainable development in the 1960s, the vast majority of people on the planet today have grown up with formal or informal education about sustainability. As Wals et al (2017: 71) have argued, educators “need strategies for anticipatory engagement with changing socio-ecological realities–both in the present and future–in order to be effective within their various embodied contexts”.

This Special Issue will feature articles that address how we can imagine and implement sustainability education across the lifespan, and at particular important junctures in the lifespan and within relational geographies of place and space. We seek articles that argue for, describe, and report the effectiveness of sustainability education that fosters continuing education about anthropocene realities; interdependencies with other social, economic, and environmental changes; possible solutions and improvements of how humans live and thrive within their ecological limits and repair damage done, and invites community that supports adaptation and resilience. This Special Issue will supplement the current literature on sustainability education by addressing the clear need to imagine sustainability education across the lifespan, from cradle to grave, to foster understanding, responsibility, hope, and courage for all ages to have their role in building a better world.

Reference:

Wals, Arjen E.J; Joseph Weakland; Peter Blaze Corcoran. Preparing for the Ecocene: Envisioning futures for environment and sustainability education. Japanese Journal of Environmental Education 2017, 26, 71–76. 

Prof. Dr. Naomi T. Krogman
Prof. Dr. Susan A. O’Neill
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• sustainability
• lifelong education
• resilience
• intergenerational learning
• climate change crisis
• transformative education
• lifelong learning
• ecological systems
• environmental education
• relational geographies
• human flourishing
• social justice education