The first set of international recommendations to guide environmental education (EE) was developed in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1977. Ten years later, in 1987, a conference in Moscow, Russia, reviewed progress and focused on institutional strategies and action plans to strengthen environmental education. A third international environmental education…

To encourage efforts for furthering the UN DESD agenda in Latin America, a meeting titled "Building Education for Sustainable Development" was held in Costa Rica from 31 October to 2 November 2006. Plenary sessions were interspersed with working groups to look at how ESD can be integrated in formal and non-formal education systems, and to make…

What motivates more than 800 people from 101 countries around the world to meet at a World Environmental Education Congress (WEEC)? And how does one make the most of such an incredible gathering of people, cultures, thoughts and minds? What did people learn and was it worthwhile? These are just some of the questions that have been chasing through…

Whether we view sustainable development as our greatest challenge or a subversive litany, every phase of education is now being urged to declare its support for education for sustainable development (ESD). In this paper, we explore the ideas behind ESD and, building on work by Foster and by Scott and Gough, we argue that it is necessary now to…

This article presents an overview of a community development service learning programme operating in the Greek Ionian Island community of Farsa Village. The philosophical approach of the Kefalonia Program is one of "threading the past with the future". It seeks to combine traditional knowledge with contemporary technologies in order to create a…

The concept of Regional Centres of Expertise (RCEs) on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been enthusiastically embraced by a diverse array of actors since it was first introduced by the United Nations University (UNU) in 2004. An RCE is conceived of as a "network" of existing organisations of formal, nonformal and informal education,…

Research on education for sustainable development (ESD) is not a unified body of work and, much like the literature for environmental education (EE), research is published in many arenas. The trends, however, capture some of the major foci of the research that is emerging on ESD, especially in the early years of the Decade of Education for…

This article argues that food issues are an appropriate, if not necessary, topic for education for sustainable development (ESD) both in terms of teaching and institutional practice. The first section summarises critical topics for a school or university course on food. The second section cites two examples of university efforts--at the University…

Monitoring and evaluation has been identified as one of seven key strategies for advancing the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD). The UN International Implementation Scheme for the Decade has called for the development of relevant and suitable indicators at all levels. Choosing appropriate education for sustainable…

Research in the disciplines of education, science education, and environmental education has a rich history. While research in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) may be related to these traditions, there is a need for ESD to carve a new niche that promotes high quality and effective ESD programmes. With an eye towards practice and applied…

The concept of a United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) has its roots in the Asia-Pacific. Arguably, so far, more countries within the Asia-Pacific have engaged in advancing the DESD agenda than any other region in the world. This paper focuses on regional, sub-regional and national efforts to promote learning for…

Using the tool of bibliometry, this study examines journal articles related to Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in academic journals from 1990 to 2005. It offers a statistical description of the literature, and analyses the development of ESD publications within the journal literature to date. The results show that the number of ESD…

From 27 to 29 October 2005, 35 experts in higher education for sustainability (HES) representing 17 countries, gathered in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This consultation represents the first gathering of HES researchers in Canada, and brought Canadian and international researchers together to further intellectual understanding of HES research and to…

In the context of areas that have little prospect in the medium term of providing even minimal livelihoods locally for their overwhelming poor and increasingly migration-dependent rural populations, what does education for sustainable development (ESD) mean? Do efforts to qualitatively improve migration offer a viable strategy for reducing poverty…

Many educators think of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) on a disciplinary level--what is Environmental Education's (EE) contribution to a more sustainable future? Briefly, we describe differences and similarities between EE and ESD. Next, we examine four levels of activity--disciplinary, whole school, educational system, and…