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Sustainability mindsets for primary and secondary learners: a framework supporting students, educators, and education leadership connecting learning and sustainable development
Wed, February 22, 1:30 to 3:00pm EST (1:30 to 3:00pm EST), Grand Hyatt Washington, Floor: Independence Level (5B), Franklin SquareProposal
The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) lay out a vision of a more equitable and sustainable world. However, achieving this vision is challenging. Although the SDGs recognize the importance of education in Goal 4 and specifically focus on education about a globally connected, sustainable world in Target 4.7, understanding how to achieve Target 4.7 continues to be a subject of inquiry.
This paper suggests that focusing on student mindsets can be part of the answer.
According to Donella Meadows, one of the most effective leverage points to intervene in a system is the mindset out of which the system arises (1997). In sustainability education, defining the competencies and mindsets students need to change our current system and help create a sustainable future has been a topic of global discussion, including at large institutions like UNESCO (Halinen, 2017). Today, the Smithsonian Science Education Center (SSEC) offers a framework for Sustainability Mindsets to encourage primary and secondary students to interrogate the local and global systems they are embedded in and create positive change in those systems (Gibson, 2021). Developing student attitudes towards and skills in agency and action-taking, open-mindedness and reflection, relationships and interconnection, and equity and justice can help them become partners in creating shared transformative futures (Gibson).
The Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project, focused on STEM Education for Sustainable Development (STEM4SD) (Pahnke, O'Donnell, & Bascopé, 2019), endeavors to develop these Sustainability Mindsets. This is done through transdisciplinary, student-facing resources that lead students to take action in their own communities, as well as high-quality professional development that provides educators with the tools and resources necessary to support the growth of these mindsets in their student populations. This paper will explore the integration of the Sustainability Mindsets into the Smithsonian Science for Global Goals project and the alignment of the Sustainability Mindsets with the sustainability competencies set at both the university level (National Academies of Sciences Engineering, and Medicine, 2020) and the business management level (Kassel and Rimanoczy, 2018).
The paper will also include case studies of student work that both develop and demonstrate the Sustainability Mindsets in formal and informal educational experiences. Ideas from students, educators, and educational leaders about the Sustainability Mindsets reflect the diverse ways these groups connect to the Mindsets and offer suggestions about how the Mindsets can provide a cohesive way to shift our current systems towards STEM Education for Sustainable Development (STEM4SD).