Education for Sustainable Development and the Futures of Education
Who is Dr. Rosalyn McKeown-Ice?
Dr. Rosalyn McKeown-Ice is education advisor for sustainable development (ESD) to Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education. Dr. McKeown was director of the Center for Geography and Environmental Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is former Secretariat for the UNESCO Chair on Reorienting Teacher Education to Address Sustainability at York University in Canada. She served for three years as a Programme Specialist in the ESD Section at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris and has over 60 publications of which 25+ are in peer-reviewed journals. Rosalyn is the primary author of the Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit. She primarily taught teacher-preparation courses and was a high school teacher.
Quick Overview
Dr. McKeown-Ice has been one of the pioneers in education for sustainable development (ESD), and her understanding of ESD has evolved with the times. She shares with us that in today’s world, ESD has become part of educating for a more uncertain future; it includes educating for agency, adaptive competence and compassionate systems. The demonstration of ESD generating outcomes that characterise quality education, as well as the examples and tools offered by Dr. McKeown-Ice, shall encourage teachers of any discipline to incorporate sustainability to their own teaching. What is also inspiring, and admirable, is how Dr. McKeown-Ice applies the Earth Charter in education on both macro and micro levels. In her reflexion on Envisioning the future of education, she calls for attention to contextual variability, technological impact, and compassionate systems thinking.
Questions Addressed in this Episode
- What has your journey as an educator been like? Can you share with us your most impactful experience?
- What is education for sustainable development (ESD)? How is it different? How is it related to quality education and environmental education?
- Why should ESD be embraced? How can it be implemented?
- How would you envision the futures of education?
- What is your personal experience with online teaching?
- What are the difficulties of teaching values and how can we overcome these difficulties?
- How can the Earth Charter be used in education?
Listen to this episode
Duration: 1:07:38