In class thus far, we’ve discussed how international protocols, goals, and agreements have been negotiated and adopted. I wanted to gain context around the implementation process for achieving these metrics and how the U.N. was leading this. I attended the discussion, Interconnected and Indivisible: Strengthening Post-secondary Education for Sustainable Development with Interdisciplinary Ideas hosted by the SDG Academy. This session was a part of the virtual International Conference on Sustainable Development aimed at providing a cross-disciplinary forum for stakeholders to discuss ways to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 17 SDGs were established in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly as a part of “The 2030 Agenda,” the same year the Paris Agreement was adopted. The U.N. explains that the “Implementation of the Paris Agreement is essential for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and provides a roadmap for climate actions that will reduce emissions and build climate resilience.”
Having been entrenched in post-secondary education for seven years, I’ve only come across a few departments at progressive universities that have made sustainability education a pillar of their instructional goals. I was curious to hear what the panelists, established educators, business people, and a Co-Chair of the U.N.’s Higher Education Sustainability Initiative, thought about strengthening sustainability education and how that tied into the SDGs and ultimately reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement. This session, focused on incorporating sustainability development components to areas of study outside of traditional environmental or sustainability courses at post-secondary institutions. Distinguished educators shared in the introduction video the importance of educating instructors in sustainability development so they can teach to push students to achieve the SDGs. Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University poignantly put it, “If every teacher and educator was trained in sustainability, we would have a very different outcome [in regards to climate change]. But we don’t have that because we have to argue with people over whether or not it should even be taught.”
The discussion continued with background about the SDG Academy which is a free, online education platform whose goal is to produce high quality educational resources about sustainable development for the world. Courses offered through SDG Academy cover interdisciplinary topics related to all 17 of the SDGs. In this session, panelists shared their efforts and experiences from their respective institutions in promoting mandatory sustainable development education. Panelists shared that most universities weren’t interested in adding new sustainability requirements unless the request was coming from students or future employers. Additionally, most of their colleagues were dismissive of the benefits of incorporating sustainable development education into a breadth of coursework; seemingly, because they didn’t gasp the importance of it. I believe there is a strong case for incorporating sustainability trainings and problem solving exercises into most courses because all modern challenges are now influenced by worsening climate change. The panelists’ struggles generating support did not surprise me as I have often felt like a lone wolf seeking interdisciplinary coursework that solves real-world problems within my engineering studies.
My main takeaways from this discussion were that there’s an abundance of free, publicly available, U.N. curated, resources to bridge the global education gap and integrate sustainable development into all aspects of education. Specifically, in post-secondary education, conservative universities will not change unless students unite and demand cross-disciplinary, sustainability training and problem solving. Negotiating with universities to add sustainability training will require pressure from the bottom up (student led). We know the SIDS nations push for the most aggressive goals and positions on climate change and that is not by accident. They have the most to lose and least to gain from intensified climate change, similar to the youth.
We, students, activists, future educators, and leaders, must step up and demand the dominant institutions that “supply” us with an education change. The days of memorizing equations, theorems, and formulas are behind us. We can reference nearly any tidbit of information instantaneously. However, one cannot simply google how to think and analyze complex datasets through a systems level approach. Nor, can we google “how to solve climate change” and expect a procedural “how to guide.’ Our modern world is challenged with extremely complicated, interconnected issues that require both board understanding and specific expertise. Our classrooms must adapt to teach to the level of the crisis that we are living in. We are fooling ourselves if we think that our current education system is preparing students to think at the level that is necessary to maintain a livable planet for generations to come.
