IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v13y2021i3p1316-d487872.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Earth Science Education as a Key Component of Education for Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Clara Vasconcelos

    (Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research (CIIMAR), Science Teaching Unit (UEC) & Department of Geosciences, Environment and Spatial Planning (DGAOT), Faculty of Sciences (FCUP), University of Porto, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal)

  • Nir Orion

    (Science Teaching Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 7610001, Israel)

Abstract

Environmental insight has emerged as a new scientific concept which incorporates the understanding that the Earth is made up of interworking subsystems and the acceptance that humans must act in harmony with the Earth’s dynamic balanced cycle. This Earth system competency represents the highest level of knowing and understanding in the geosciences community. Humans have an important role as participative beings in the Earth’s subsystems, and they must therefore acknowledge that life on Earth depends on a geoethically responsible management of the Earth system. Yet, the world is far from achieving sustainable development, making the role of the Earth science education in promoting education for sustainability even more relevant. The Earth system approach to education is designed to be an effective learning tool for the development of the innovative concept of environmental insight. Through a holistic view of planet Earth, students realize that humans have the ability to enjoy a sustainable life on our planet while minimising detrimental environmental impacts. There is growing evidence that citizens value science and need to be informed about Earth system problems such as climate change, resource efficiency, pandemics, sustainable use of water resources, and how to protect bio-geodiversity. By moving away from both traditional practices and traditional perceptions, environmental insight and geoethics will lead towards an education for sustainability that provides the citizens of Earth with the tools they need to address the full complexity of its urgent environmental concerns.

Suggested Citation

  • Clara Vasconcelos & Nir Orion, 2021. "Earth Science Education as a Key Component of Education for Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(3), pages 1-11, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:3:p:1316-:d:487872
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1316/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/3/1316/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Brzezinski, Adam & Deiana, Guido & Kecht, Valentin & Van Dijcke, David, 2020. "The COVID-19 Pandemic: Government vs. Community Action Across the United States," INET Oxford Working Papers 2020-06, Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford.
    2. Luis Portales, 2019. "Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-13456-3, December.
    3. Wolfgang Sachs, 2004. "Environment and Human Rights," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 47(1), pages 42-49, March.
    4. Frank Biermann & Michele Betsill & Joyeeta Gupta & Norichika Kanie & Louis Lebel & Diana Liverman & Heike Schroeder & Bernd Siebenhüner & Ruben Zondervan, 2010. "Earth system governance: a research framework," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 277-298, December.
    5. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    6. Felicia Keesing & Lisa K. Belden & Peter Daszak & Andrew Dobson & C. Drew Harvell & Robert D. Holt & Peter Hudson & Anna Jolles & Kate E. Jones & Charles E. Mitchell & Samuel S. Myers & Tiffany Bogich, 2010. "Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases," Nature, Nature, vol. 468(7324), pages 647-652, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andrea Gerbaudo & Francesca Lozar & Manuela Lasagna & Marco Davide Tonon & Elena Egidio, 2022. "Are We Ready for a Sustainable Development? A Survey among Young Geoscientists in Italy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-17, June.
    2. Ibrahim Arpaci & Abdullah Kaya & Mahadi Bahari, 2023. "Investigating the Influence of an Arduino-Based Educational Game on the Understanding of Genetics among Secondary School Students," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-11, April.
    3. Andrea Gerbaudo & Francesca Lozar & Manuela Lasagna & Marco Davide Tonon & Elena Egidio, 2023. "For a Sustainable Future: A Survey about the 2030 Agenda among the Italian Geosciences Community," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-15, July.
    4. Alexandros Aristotelis Koupatsiaris & Hara Drinia, 2024. "Expanding Geoethics: Interrelations with Geoenvironmental Education and Sense of Place," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-34, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. David Caldevilla-Domínguez & Almudena Barrientos-Báez & Graciela Padilla-Castillo, 2021. "Twitter as a Tool for Citizen Education and Sustainable Cities after COVID-19," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Jie Zhu & Weijian Hua, 2017. "Visualizing the knowledge domain of sustainable development research between 1987 and 2015: a bibliometric analysis," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 893-914, February.
    3. Michael P. Schlaile & Sophie Urmetzer & Vincent Blok & Allan Dahl Andersen & Job Timmermans & Matthias Mueller & Jan Fagerberg & Andreas Pyka, 2017. "Innovation Systems for Transformations towards Sustainability? Taking the Normative Dimension Seriously," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-20, December.
    4. Biermann, Frank, 2012. "Planetary boundaries and earth system governance: Exploring the links," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 4-9.
    5. Anita Talberg & Peter Christoff & Sebastian Thomas & David Karoly, 2018. "Geoengineering governance-by-default: an earth system governance perspective," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 18(2), pages 229-253, April.
    6. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    7. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    8. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    9. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    10. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    11. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    12. Megan Devonald & Nicola Jones & Sally Youssef, 2022. "‘We Have No Hope for Anything’: Exploring Interconnected Economic, Social and Environmental Risks to Adolescents in Lebanon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-17, February.
    13. Rigby, Dan & Woodhouse, Phil & Young, Trevor & Burton, Michael, 2001. "Constructing a farm level indicator of sustainable agricultural practice," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 463-478, December.
    14. Michael Howes & Liana Wortley & Ruth Potts & Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes & Silvia Serrao-Neumann & Julie Davidson & Timothy Smith & Patrick Nunn, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability: A Case of Policy Implementation Failure?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, January.
    15. Shiferaw, Bekele & Holden, Stein, 1999. "Soil Erosion and Smallholders' Conservation Decisions in the Highlands of Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 739-752, April.
    16. Ibrahim Ari & Muammer Koc, 2018. "Sustainable Financing for Sustainable Development: Understanding the Interrelations between Public Investment and Sovereign Debt," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-25, October.
    17. Parnphumeesup, Piya & Kerr, Sandy A., 2011. "Stakeholder preferences towards the sustainable development of CDM projects: Lessons from biomass (rice husk) CDM project in Thailand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3591-3601, June.
    18. Pengji Wang & Adrian T. H. Kuah & Qinye Lu & Caroline Wong & K. Thirumaran & Emmanuel Adegbite & Wesley Kendall, 2021. "The impact of value perceptions on purchase intention of sustainable luxury brands in China and the UK," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 325-346, May.
    19. Christoph M. Schmidt & Nils aus dem Moore, 2014. "Wie geht es uns? Die W3-Indikatoren für eine neue Wohlstandsmessung," RWI Positionen, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, pages 16, 03.
    20. Katundu Imasiku & Valerie M. Thomas & Etienne Ntagwirumugara, 2020. "Unpacking Ecological Stress from Economic Activities for Sustainability and Resource Optimization in Sub-Saharan Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(9), pages 1-12, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:3:p:1316-:d:487872. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.