Katja Brundiers

Real‐world learning opportunities in sustainability: from classroom into the real world

Purpose – Academic sustainability programs aim to develop key competencies in sustainability, including problem‐solving skills and the ability to collaborate successfully with experts and stakeholders. These key competencies may be most fully developed in new teaching and learning situations. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the kind of, and extent to which, these key competencies can be acquired in real‐world learning opportunities.Design/methodology/approach – The paper summarizes key competencies in sustainability, identifies criteria for real‐world learning opportunities in sustainability programs, and draws on dominant real‐world learning models including project‐ and problem‐based learning, service learning, and internships in communities, businesses, and governments. These components are integrated into a framework to design real‐world learning opportunities.Findings – A “functional and progressive” model of real‐world learning opportunities seems most conducive to introduce students (as wel...

Integrating problem and project-based learning into sustainability programs: A case study on the school of sustainability at Arizona state university

Purpose – The article aims to describe the problem- and project-based learning (PPBL) program and the institutional context at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability (SOS), with the goal of offering experience-based guidance for similar initiatives in sustainability programs around the world. Design/methodology/approach – This case study presents the diverse PPBL activities that SOS offers on the undergraduate and the graduate levels and examines the institutional structures in place that support these activities. Data were collected through literature and document reviews, observations, interviews, student evaluations and faculty surveys. Findings – The review of the PPBL program at SOS illustrates a case of successfully inaugurating a PPBL program in sustainability at a major university in the USA. Yet, a key challenge for this program and similar programs around the world is how to maintain the institutional momentum and make advances after the initial takeoff. SOS is attempting to address...

Challenges of sustainable recovery processes in tsunami affected communities

Purpose – Sustainable housing and community recovery processes in the aftermath of tsunamis have to cope with direct impacts, such as fatalities, destroyed buildings, and loss of economic assets, as well as indirect impacts caused by shortcomings in recovery management. Recent studies on post‐tsunami recovery tend to focus on direct impacts, ranging from monitoring to prevention studies. Less attention is paid to recovery as a complex bundle of multi‐agent processes causing subsequent problems.Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents results from field studies evaluating post‐tsunami recovery processes in Sri Lanka against the concept of sustainable housing and community recovery. Semi‐structured observations and interviews were conducted on eight sites in the south‐western part of Sri Lanka during field visits 2005‐2006. The research involved beneficiaries and other citizens, representatives from government and administration, field workers (non‐governmental organizations), and scientists.Finding...

Mitigating urban sprawl effects: a collaborative tree and shade intervention in Phoenix, Arizona, USA

Communities in Phoenix are confronted with numerous challenges that adversely affect human health and safety, with disproportionate impacts on low-income communities. While some challenges are being addressed at the city level, new alliances at the neighbourhood level are initiating community development programmes and projects. This article reports on an intervention study carried out in collaboration with community representatives, city staff, and non-profit organisations to mitigate adverse effects of urban sprawl in the Sky Harbour Neighbourhood in Phoenix. Participatory research was conducted to design and test a tree and shade intervention. Challenges associated with navigating community desires and broader principles of sustainable development are discussed. The study offers a replicable and adaptable intervention research design aimed at empowering communities to meet urban challenges.

Disasters as opportunities for sustainability: the case of Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand

Disasters can catalyze change in different ways, among others: they allow reinforcing pre-disaster exploitation and inequities, enhancing disaster risk reduction policies, or introducing alternative pathways guided by sustainability. Only few studies have investigated the latter: how people were able to leverage disasters for change towards sustainability. This study deals with such people who were able to see, seize, and sustain opportunities for sustainability following a disaster. The study generated data through semi-structured interviews with sustainability change agents in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, active during and after the major earthquakes period 2010–2012. The study finds that progress towards sustainability to date is mixed. While Christchurch was less successful in leveraging the immediate opportunities for sweeping change towards sustainability, the sustainability change agents continued to see, seize, and sustain post-disaster opportunities to move sustainability forward. The study derives advice on how to best leverage disasters for sustainability.

Educating Sustainability Change Agents by Design: Appraisals of the Transformative Role of Higher Education

While scholars observe positive trends in sustainability education, sustainability education as a field still finds itself mired between institutional inertia and strong drivers for transitions (Jones et al., 2010). As Van der Leeuw et al. (2012, p. 118) describe: Academic institutions remain so inertial because the professoriate remains in familiar and comfortable patterns. This is human nature, but denudes the academy of the energy and passion needed for change. Following form, the next generation of academics learns the habits, practices, and methods of their professors, replicating the status quo. A more bilateral relationship between faculty and students might produce different outcomes. If students played an equal role in the development of curricula, selection of course content, and initiation of applied projects, how different might the impact of the academy become? The vision implicit in this description is of sustainability education defined by innovative, multilateral relationships among faculty, students and surrounding communities. This chapter presents work in progress at three educational sustainability programmes — one each in Canada, Germany and the United States of America — seeking to contribute to transformative change for sustainability by way of educating ‘sustainability change agents’ (Moore, 2005; Svanstrom et al., 2008).