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Shining a Light on Climate Change, Racism, Justice, and Education |
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How can sustainability education advance equity and justice in research and public education?
Over the summer and fall, the Sustainability Education Collective Conference Series was launched by Samantha Lindgren, assistant professor in Education Policy, Organization & Leadership; Jon Hale, associate professor in Education Policy, Organization & Leadership and Curriculum & Instruction; and Luis Rodriguez, associate director for education and outreach for the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment and associate professor in Illinois’ Grainger College of Engineering.
Environmental and sustainability education is expanding to not only look at the mechanisms of climate change but how the impacts of that change are not evenly distributed.
{ .top-left .fixed-small-width } “The most vulnerable communities around the world are already experiencing the impacts of climate change, while those of us who are wealthy by comparison don’t experience the same effects because we’re able to afford ways to mitigate it,” she says. “Many low- and middle-income countries around the world are dealing with loss of land and severe drought, and in the U.S., communities of color are the ones that bear the greatest burden because of issues of housing discrimination and quality, and because more communities of color exist in urban places which experience heat islands effects.”
The conference series engaged a diverse community of sustainability education researchers, educators, nongovernmental organization experts, and learners in identifying solutions to the current crises across multiple scales and methodologies.
Participants took part in discussions on topics such as using geographic information systems to incorporate maps into curricula from K-college and how colleges of education can become more focused on, and a part of, climate change solutions.
Others involved in the conference series from the College of Education include Asif Wilson, assistant professor in Curriculum & Instruction; Jennifer Johnson, a post-doctoral student; and Nicole DelMastro-Jeffery, a doctoral student.