<p>Environmental problems are seen as the first priority that all countries try to find as a solution to be more sustainable. These issues arise due to the lack of our responsibility to the world. Researchers agree on that the starting point in changing our society to be green is to increase environmental awareness (Jiang et al., 1999). Several sectors accept this idea like UNESCO which focuses on education as a tool to promote sustainable development (UNESCO, 2002).</p><p> </p><p>Following UNESCO, our study investigates university students’ environmental awareness. The Authors hope that the outcome not only reflects university performance, but also helps to develop the environment in the future.  Hence, the authors selected the University of Gävle or HiG, as a case study because it is a best practice in Environmental Management System (EMS). Moreover, HiG received the ISO 14001 certificate and it has a continuous improvement program (Sammalisto, 2007, p.69). </p><p> </p><p>The study was started by reviewing research literatures concerning Environmental Management System (EMS), Sustainable Development (SD), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Environmental Awareness. The authors found that there are few studies talking about students’ awareness in universities after being awarded ISO 14001. Notice that the research was seen only from environmental perspective (Flint, 2004).</p><p> </p><p>To answer research questions, two surveys were adopted. The first part focused on teachers and officers (or staffs) who work on environmental issues. While, the second part focused on the students which were divided into Swedish and international.</p><p> </p><p>The research outcomes indicate that HiG has a good EMS performance supported by annual environmental audits, regular policy revision and the attempts to minimize non-conformities. Conversely, when the authors pointed at student awareness, it shows that students have insufficient environmental knowledge. Moreover, some students have lower environmental awareness and act in a less ecological friendly way. Nevertheless, a knowledge problem was also found among several university staffs. This is because of the lack of communication about environmental issues inside the staffs community and lack of environmental education for students.</p><p> </p><p>Whatever the university situation is, there are some groups of staff and students eager to develop themselves and their university. This point of strength could be the best driving force. It can push the university forward until the university reaches sustainable development and it brings the aware graduates into society.</p>

Many Swedish schools collaborate with schools in other countries. This research study focuses teachers’ experiences of transnational school collaboration between Swedish schools and schools in other countries. The aim of the study is to investigate the outcome of such projects and find explanations why teachers make a choice to use international school twinning as a part of their teaching in environmental education. The study concentrates on teachers’ motives for involving their students in transnational school exchange regarding environmental issues. A part of the investigation is also to elucidate how teachers conceive cultural meeting and cooperation that occurs in the context of transnational school exchange projects. The conditions for carrying on such projects are also investigated. The study uses semi-structured interviews with upper secondary school teachers from Sweden and Britain. Most interviews were performed at the respective teachers’ schools. The processing of the interviews consists of transcribing followed by a narrative report and analysis. The investigation shows that the teachers find that their students’ personal development is highly improved by international school exchange both through experiencing a different culture and cooperating with young people from another country. The teachers also believe that their students’ environmental awareness is improved by experiencing investigations and collaboration in another part of the world. The positive effects from the exchange projects are also considered as mutual for the students in both of the cooperating countries.

Environmental problems are seen as the first priority that all countries try to find as a solution to be more sustainable. These issues arise due to the lack of our responsibility to the world. Researchers agree on that the starting point in changing our society to be green is to increase environmental awareness (Jiang et al., 1999). Several sectors accept this idea like UNESCO which focuses on education as a tool to promote sustainable development (UNESCO, 2002).   Following UNESCO, our study investigates university students’ environmental awareness. The Authors hope that the outcome not only reflects university performance, but also helps to develop the environment in the future.  Hence, the authors selected the University of Gävle or HiG, as a case study because it is a best practice in Environmental Management System (EMS). Moreover, HiG received the ISO 14001 certificate and it has a continuous improvement program (Sammalisto, 2007, p.69).    The study was started by reviewing research literatures concerning Environmental Management System (EMS), Sustainable Development (SD), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Environmental Awareness. The authors found that there are few studies talking about students’ awareness in universities after being awarded ISO 14001. Notice that the research was seen only from environmental perspective (Flint, 2004).   To answer research questions, two surveys were adopted. The first part focused on teachers and officers (or staffs) who work on environmental issues. While, the second part focused on the students which were divided into Swedish and international.   The research outcomes indicate that HiG has a good EMS performance supported by annual environmental audits, regular policy revision and the attempts to minimize non-conformities. Conversely, when the authors pointed at student awareness, it shows that students have insufficient environmental knowledge. Moreover, some students have lower environmental awareness and act in a less ecological friendly way. Nevertheless, a knowledge problem was also found among several university staffs. This is because of the lack of communication about environmental issues inside the staffs community and lack of environmental education for students.   Whatever the university situation is, there are some groups of staff and students eager to develop themselves and their university. This point of strength could be the best driving force. It can push the university forward until the university reaches sustainable development and it brings the aware graduates into society.

The main aims of the current study are five fold (1) to develop a valid scale for measuring beliefs about education for sustainable development, (2) to adapt the values on sustainable development scale to the context of Turkey, (3) to explore elementary teachers&rsquo / familiarity with and understanding of sustainable development, (4) to determine the elementary teachers&rsquo / values on sustainable development, (5) to investigate their beliefs about education for sustainable development. In addition, the barriers elementary teachers have perceived regarding education for sustainable development, teaching strategies they have used in education for sustainable development and the possible relationship between barriers they have perceived and their beliefs about education for sustainable development was examined. The data of this study obtained from 211 elementary teachers who enrolled in the Green Pack and the Eco-Schools projects via direct administration and web-survey data collection methods in May to September 2012. The results revealed that Turkish elementary teachers lack of sufficient understandings of sustainable development. On the other hand, elementary teachers have favorable beliefs about education for sustainable development and favorable values on sustainable development. In addition, lack of the knowledge about sustainable development and lack of the knowledge about teaching sustainable development were relatively common barriers for these elementary teachers. Lastly, negative correlation between elementary teachers&rsquo / beliefs about education for sustainable development and barriers they have perceived was found.

The aim of the study is to analyse the learning process of the Dorze weaving in Ethiopia and its implications on Education for Sustainable Development, ESD. My two main questions are: 1. How do the Dorze understand their learning process in weaving? 2. What conclusions concerning education for sustainable development applied on textile handicraft can be drawn from the findings of my case study?   In order to answer these questions I have made a field study on the Dorze (the weavers) in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia for 10 weeks. The study has a socio-cultural and narrative approach and the method used are interviews, observations and review of documents. The result is presented in a “metastory” where I retell the stories and introduce the results of the study and that gives answers to question 1. UNESCO’s recommendations on ESD are used to analyse the findings and give the answer to question 2. The result shows that the learning process depends on the environment with its people, who have gathered knowledge of raw material and techniques for generations but the latter also needs to develop to meet new challenges. “Shiro Meda” is the centre of learning. To grow up in “Shiro Meda” it becomes natural to work with textile production, accept a special lifestyle with clear gender differences and a hierarchical structure. The educational model of spinning and twisting are “learning by doing”, whereas young boys start practising weaving under the leadership of an older teacher step by step.   From an ESD perspective the Dorze education is holistic, practical, individualized, and contains some problem solving even if the students are not participating in decisions on how they learn. The education is highly integrated in the daily life of the weaving community and is also relevant to the surrounding local community. Moreover the education transfers a historical legacy of cultural continuity, and has shown itself to be dynamic and adaptable to change. A weakness in this traditional knowledge system is the low profit the weavers are making and the set hierarchical and gender rules which need to be developed in order to be sustainable for future challenges. The final discussion highlights the relevance of my findings for a Swedish learning context. / 2010ht4661

After the introduction of the term,  sustainable development, a variety of  academicians from different disciplines tried to conceptualize it in their own way, drawing on these views, many different degrees but with similar titles have been established in many universities all around the world. Masters  program in  Sustainable Development  (MSD) at Uppsala University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is one the most recent ones. Before starting this study, it was investigated that the expectations of the different actors in this program are not fulfilled completely. Presence of many different ideas and perspectives in addition to the high number of actors involved in the situation made the situation too complex to be fixed easily. Therefore, the Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), as an appropriate approach for improving complex problematic situations,  is  used to reform the organization of  the  MSD in coming years. The process of identifying the  challenges of this program and then  improving some of them in  practice  are described in this thesis. Alongside the  action phase, the applications of Systems Approach in transformation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are explored.  It is investigated that three levels of learning, i.e. basic, meta-  and epistemic learning, and accordingly three levels of organizational change, i.e. the first, second and third order, need to be recognized, if an ESD program is to be different from the unsustainable trends of education.

After the introduction of the term, sustainable development, a variety of academicians fromdifferent disciplines tried to conceptualize it in their own way, drawing on these views, manydifferent degrees but with similar titles have been established in many universities all around theworld.Masters program in Sustainable Development (MSD) at Uppsala University and the SwedishUniversity of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) is one the most recent ones. Before starting this study, itwas investigated that the expectations of the different actors in this program are not fulfilledcompletely. Presence of many different ideas and perspectives in addition to the high number ofactors involved in the situation made the situation too complex to be fixed easily. Therefore, theSoft Systems Methodology (SSM), as an appropriate approach for improving complex problematicsituations, is used to reform the organization of the MSD in coming years. The process ofidentifying the challenges of this program and then improving some of them in practice aredescribed in this thesis. Alongside the action phase, the applications of Systems Approach intransformation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are explored.It is investigated that three levels of learning, i.e. basic, meta- and epistemic learning, andaccordingly three levels of organizational change, i.e. the first, second and third order, need to berecognized, if an ESD program is to be different from the unsustainable trends of education.

VET HUT! Om möjligheter och begränsningar med ämnesövergripande tematisk undervisning för hållbar utveckling Education for Sustainable Development Possibilities and limitations with thematic interdisciplinary education for Sustainable Development. Antal sidor: 39 Att gå från abstrakta ord till konkret handling, när det gäller realiseringen av hållbar utveckling, är en högprioriterad uppgift i dagens och framtidens globala samhälle. En uppgift där skolan besitter en nyckelroll för att lägga grunden till de attityder de uppväxande och kommande generationerna kommer att tillämpa i sina vardagliga handlingar. I och med detta anser vi det av stor vikt att ifrågasätta utformandet av undervisningen i hållbar utveckling och vi har i denna studie undersökt lärarnas syn på villkor för ämnesövergripande temaundervisning i hållbar utveckling. Där vi mot bakgrund av ett av oss konstruerat exempel diskuterar möjligheter och svårigheter tillsammans med nio lärare. Konklusionen av studien visar att HUT bör ses som ett holistiskt etiskt förhållningssätt snarare än ett specifikt undervisningsämne, då det i slutänden är den gemensamma insatsen som ger förutsättningarna för förståelsen av samspelet mellan ekologiska, ekonomiska och sociala aspekter. För att åstadkomma detta är behovet stort för att i skolan praktisera den normativa undervisningsmetodiken, för att förse eleverna med kritiskt tänkande och förståelse att genom etiska och demokratiska handlingar påverkar det globala samhället i en hållbar riktning. Vi konstaterar att det finns ett stort engagemang och intresse för HUT-frågor samt att HUT redan finns tillstor del ute i praktiken. De villkor vi funnit för temaundervisning i hållbar utveckling är att det måste finns ett intresse, en organisation och struktur som möjliggör samarbete och utbyte mellan elever, mellan lärare och mellan elever och lärare. Vi tror att mycket, relativt enkelt, kan vinnas om tid och kraft satsas på att utveckla och förtydliga de ämnesöverskridande kopplingar som finns i begreppets olika aspekter genom exempelvis deliberativa samtal. I diskussionen ger vi förslag på tillvägagångssätt för att underlätta implementering av tematiskt ämnesövergripande arbete i hållbar utveckling

This study aims to measure the effect of designed environmental education lectures that is based on general environmental problems on primary school students&rsquo / attitudes toward environment. The participants of this study obtained from a governmental school in Y&uuml / z&uuml / nc&uuml / Yil districts of Ankara and consists of 51 (18 fourth grade and 33 fifth grade) students. In the study that is held in 2006-2007 education year students implemented to environmental education lectures for one month. The lectures included the &ldquo / sustainable development&rdquo / and &ldquo / ecological footprint&rdquo / concept, as well as the general environmental problems, their reasons and recycling as solution for reducing environmental problems, and student-centered teaching methods such as discussion, role playing, cooperative learning and questioning were used during the lectures in addition to the traditional teaching method. The data concerning the effect of the lectures was obtained by the environmental attitude questionnaire implemented to the students before and after the treatment as pre-test and post-test. Independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test were conducted for data analysis and the result of the study indicated that environmental education lectures increased the environmental attitudes of the students.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of eco-school application on elementary school students&rsquo / environmental literacy levels. Besides, effects of the application on students&rsquo / views about environment were explored. The study was carried out during the spring semester of 2008&ndash / 2009 academic year. Data of the study were gathered from 316 students (grades six to eight) enrolled to two elementary schools. One of the schools was determined as experimental group (n = 156) and students attending this school received eco-school application. The other school was set as control group (n = 160) and students enrolled to this school received traditional school application. Environmental Literacy Questionnaire with four subscales / environmental knowledge, attitudes, uses and concerns, was used to determine students&rsquo / environmental literacy before and after the eco-school application. Also, students&rsquo / views about environment were clarified with a draw-and-explain task. At the end of the treatment, interviews were conducted with some eco-school students and teachers to determine their views about the application. The results revealed that there were significant differences between control and experimental groups of different grade levels in terms of the all subscales of Environmental Literacy Questionnaire in the favour of experimental group. Additionally, students&rsquo / pre- and post- drawings showed that elementary school students&rsquo / views about environment mainly focus on three major themes / clean, polluted and both clean and polluted environment. The Chi-Square analysis revealed that there were significant associations between treatment groups and their views about the environment.