Education for Sustainability: Becoming Naturally Smart

For the first time in human history more people live in the urban rather than the rural environment. We now have to learn to live and flourish in our urban landscape and manage our resources with ecologically informed discretion. Education is going to play a significant role in establishing the conditions for this eco-intelligence.

In this book, Paul Clarke--Professor of Education and co-founder of the Incredible Edible project--argues that we are ignoring the fact that we are destroying our planet and that our existing models of education are contributing to the problem. He maintains that an education that is not grounded in a full understanding of our relationship with the natural world is no education at all. Education is perfectly placed to create the conditions for solutions and provide the formulas that ensure everyone becomes naturally smart, but to achieve this a total re-conceptualisation of schools and how they serve their communities is needed.

Drawing on innovative sustainable living programmes from around the world, including Sweden's Forest Schools, China's Green Schools Program, the US Green Ribbon Schools Program and his own school-of-sustainability project, Paul Clarke addresses the following `explorations':

- How do we rethink our relationship with the environment?
- Is education fit for purpose if the purpose is sustainable living?
- How can community help schools to live with uncertainty?
- Open source living - when sustainability is the way of life
- Can we create schools of sustainability?
- The urban fix: sustainable cities, sustainable minds.

While acknowledging that the ecological crisis is global in scale, Clarke maintains that many of the solutions are already evident within our local communities; a point that is crucial if they are to have a social connectivity that can engage and influence public behavior. This book opens the door to a new way of imagining how we might proceed with civilization and gives practical ideas about how schools and communities can make their contribution. It is thought provoking, timely, and should be read by anyone concerned with how they might learn to tread lightly on the earth

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