Digital Commons Network^™

I contend that for progress towards a sustainable future, we need an understanding of sustainability as having a core of reconnective learning as an inbuilt ‘driver’. Many writers such as Sterling (2001: 19) call for the elaboration of a new, lived paradigm of sustainable education and learning sustainability. In this chapter, I use notions of primary and secondary meaning and Heron’s (1996) and Reason’s (2004) framework of experiential, presentational, propositional and practical knowledge to propose a transformative, reconnective process for learning sustainability. I articulate a holistic, relational ontology and a participatory epistemology as the basis of the participatory approach. The …

We have known for quite a while that the planet we live on is under ecological stress. The beginning of this century however and 2006 in particular saw renewed concerns about humanity facing environmental challenges, threats and crises related to facts and perspectives on climate change. The economics of it as revealed in the Stern Review (2006) show that there is overwhelming scientific evidence that we must take action right now so that climate change will not increase its effect on the “the basic elements of life for people around the world – access to water, food production, health, and …