This article will discuss social, environmental, and ecological justice in education for sustainable development (ESD) and Education for Sustainable Development Goals (ESDG). The concept of sustainable development and, by extension, the ESD, places heavy emphasis on the economic and social aspects of sustainability. However, the ESD falls short of recognizing ecological justice, or recognition that nonhumans also have a right to exist and flourish. An intervention in the form of an undergraduate course titled Politics, Business, and Environment (PBE) will be discussed. As part of this course, students were asked to reflect on the three pillars of sustainable development: society, economy, and environment, linking these to the fourth concept, ecological justice or biospheric egalitarianism. Biospheric egalitarianism is characterized by the recognition of intrinsic value in the environment and is defined as concern about justice for the environment. Some of the resulting exam answers are analyzed, demonstrating students’ ability to recognize the moral and pragmatic limitations of the anthropocentric approach to justice. This analysis presents ways forward in thinking about the role of “ecological justice” as the ultimate bottom line upon which both society and economy are based. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10100261 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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Education for sustainability scholarship argues that sustainability competence is more than cognitive domain learning that is traditionally (over) focused on reason, knowledge application and testing. Affective domain is missing from the education curricula in general (Sowel, 2005, Dernikos et al, 2020), and in Higher Education in Sustainability (HES) (Shepard, 2008). Yet, “it is possible to construct an argument that the essence of education for sustainability is a quest for affective outcomes” (Shepard, 2008). For example, there is a link between personal values and sustainability performance (Potocan 2021), and emotional intelligence has been seen to be “the foundation of a more cooperative and compassionate [sustainable] society” (Estrada, Rodriguez, Moliner, 2021).
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The form and format of a ‘teaching case’ implies ready-to-use teaching material that can be easily integrated within a module and/or curriculum. This is why we created (and tested across three pilots and with more than 250 students) ‘Researching the city: Mapping imaginaries’ teaching case accompanied by teachers’ training materials, sensory toolkit, all accessible through an online platform, the ‘Knowledge hub’ that further showcases the works of our students, their walks through our cities and the arguments why we all have to understand and connect in meaningful ways with urban areas that are often seen as in the so-called ‘periphery’ (or further away from the city centres).
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Nano and micro polymeric particles (NMPs) are a point of concern by environmentalists and toxicologist for the past years. Their presence has been detected in many environmental bodies and even in more recently human blood as well. One of the most common paths these particles take to enter living organisms is via water consumption. However, despite the efforts of different academic and other knowledge groups, there is no consensus about standards methods which can be used to qualifying and quantifying these particles, especially the submicrometric ones. Many different techniques have been proposed like field flow fractionation (FFF) followed by multi angle laser scattering (MALS), pyrolysis-GC and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Additionally, the sampling collection and preparation is also considered a difficult step, as such particles are mostly present in very low concentration. Nanocatcher proposes the use of submerged drones as a sampling collection tool to monitor the presence of submicrometric polymeric particles in water bodies. The sample collections will be done using special membrane systems specially designed for the drone. After collected, the samples will be analysed using FFF+MALS, SEM and Py-GC. If proven successful, the use of submerged drones can strongly facilitate sampling and mapping of submicrometric polymeric particles in water bodies and will provide an extensive and comprehensive map of the presence of these particles in such environment.
