Rationale

Why study education for sustainability?

We depend on the environment for everything.

One way or another, the opportunities that we have – or will ever have – come back to the environment. So how we treat our environment is of great importance. EfS challenges students to develop the kinds of thinking and behaviours that will secure the future.

As New Zealanders, we are proud of our natural heritage.

We like to think of our country as ‘clean and green’. But many of our practices put the environment and all its inhabitants at risk. In EfS, students learn to investigate such practices and to advocate for change.

What we do today has consequences for future generations.

Our everyday actions help shape the kind of earth that we hand on to our children. By investigating how people’s actions have created the sustainability issues that confront us now, EfS students learn to make informed decisions about how to live their own lives.

In EfS, students develop valuable, transferable skills.

EfS empowers students to:

• think critically and creatively about issues and solutions
• view the world from different perspectives, particularly those that are directly relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand
• negotiate complexity and deal with change and uncertainty
• be confident, connected, lifelong learners with a sense of responsibility for the well-being of their country and the planet
• connect thinking and actions in ways that will lead to a sustainable future – environmental, social, cultural, and economic.

EfS opens up pathways to a variety of careers with a sustainability focus.
Sustainability means enough for all, forever.

Last updated July 7, 2010

TOP