Through the Positive Peace Prism: Engaging the Climate Emergency with Regenerative Education Theory and Praxis

• In Event: Positive Peace, Global Transformations, and U.S. Contestations: Decolonial, Ecological, Economic, and Democratic Pathways in Education (Part 1)

Proposal

The accelerating climate emergency demands urgent societal and educational transformation. In 2023, the hottest year on record in over 125,000 years, scientists warned that every year going forward is likely to surpass previous extremes. The consequences are already profound: one billion children are considered at “extremely high risk” from climate-related disruptions, while political and economic systems remain dominated by fossil fuel interests. This reality underscores the necessity of a radical rethinking of how societies—and their education systems—respond to the climate emergency.
Education has historically been shaped by industrial and extractive logics that prepare individuals to participate in economies premised on exploitation of both people and planet. This orientation undermines the possibility of what Johan Galtung terms positive peace—a condition not merely defined by the absence of conflict, but by the presence of justice, ecological balance, and collective flourishing.
This paper advances the framework of regenerative education, which we define as a lifelong, critical, and ecological approach to learning that prepares communities for post-carbon thriving. While regeneration has often been applied in agriculture and design, we extend it to education, emphasizing ecological interdependence, equity, and the ubuntu principle of interconnectedness across human and nonhuman life. Regenerative education calls for systems that move beyond producing workers for extractive economies toward preparing learners to restore balance with the natural world.
To investigate how this vision is already emerging in practice, we conducted an environmental scan of regenerative education globally, though primarily focusing in the United States. This research identified more than 100 organizations explicitly engaged in regenerative educational practices. From this pool, we collected syllabi, curricula, and learning materials from 20 organizations for closer analysis. Using a multilayered qualitative approach, we examined how these organizations address the climate crisis through educational content, pedagogical strategies, and institutional design.
Preliminary findings show three key trends. First, many organizations link climate education with food sovereignty and land-based practices, positioning ecological restoration as inseparable from racial and social justice. Second, a number of programs develop curricula that integrate science, activism, and community engagement, moving beyond classroom-based knowledge transmission to collective problem-solving. Third, pedagogical innovations often emphasize interdependence, equity, and collective well-being, cultivating learners’ identities as both ecological and social beings.
From the environmental scan and case studies, we synthesize four principles of regenerative education: (1) restoring balance between humans and the natural world, (2) integrating multiple forms of education, (3) cultivating eco- and socially connected selves, and (4) linking pedagogy to advocacy and transformation.
We conclude that regenerative education offers not only a conceptual shift but also an emergent field of practice. By scaling such approaches, education systems can contribute decisively to mitigating the climate emergency and imagining regenerative futures.

Authors

• Frank Adamson, California State University, Sacramento

• Michael Gibbons, The Alternatives Project