Breaking news – The Association of Canadian Deans of Education (ACDE) launched its Accord on Education for a Sustainable Future last week. This launch was part of the UBC Dean’s Distinguished Lecture: Climate Justice and Educational Responsibility featuring Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis – the recording is available online.
We commend the ACDE for recognizing the urgency of the climate crisis, and commit to supporting this policy statement, helping to ensure that all faculties of education embed its concepts into preservice and inservice teacher education across the country. We recognize that many faculties of education need support to fully implement the Accord, and so have prepared a ‘primer’ on Environmental & Sustainability Education (ESE) in Teacher Education as a starting point.
Please feel free to share the ACDE’s Accord and this primer with your networks to raise awareness about the critical importance of ESE, as well as starting points for enacting it, in Canadian faculties of education.
If you are a faculty member in a teacher education program in Canada, we encourage you to take advantage of the launch of this Accord to meet with your colleagues, program administration, Dean and community partners to advocate for a stronger presence for ESE and climate change education in preservice and inservice teacher education across the country.
To support your advocacy, you will find many resources, videos, course syllabi, research studies, reference lists and case studies on the ESE-TE network website. We are also offering a new speaker’s service to share expertise in ESE as requested.
We will continue to create and share supports and resources in the coming months, but need your help to bring these forward to your faculty of education to advocate for better embedding ESE in Teacher Education in our country, and around the world.
So, what do you think ?