Learning Our Way to Sustainability

Should environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD) try to change students’ behaviours or should it focus on capacity building and critical thinking? The latter is more likely to lead to a citizenry that can examine new challenges and act wisely. New forms of learning are entering the arena of EE and ESD such as ‘social learning’, learning by mirroring one’s own ideas, views, values and perspectives with those of others, and ‘transformative social learning’, which requires the integrative switching back and forth among a set of mindsets. Four areas of research in new learning methods are identified.