Education is often viewed as a catalyst of change. Arguably, the future of our Planet is dependent on education that nurtures sustainable
ways of thinking and living in our environment. This thesis seeks to
argue that in order for abstract principles of sustainability to be
understood, individuals need to have opportunities to explore and be a
part of designing and experiencing their own places. Specifically, my
thesis suggests that high school students in public schools should take an
active part of this educational process.
To test this theory, I investigated three high school sustainability
programs in Austin, Texas that utilize place-based pedagogy. What was
realized is that each program envisions sustainability programming that is
integrative and experiential, but due to the current mechanistic education
system the daily programming can be difficult. This result has led me to
theorize that the entire educational system needs to be transformed in
order for sustainability education to exist. However, I finally propose a
more practical approach, and thus offer twelve generalized heuristic
questions for sustainable design educators to consider and assist them in
building social capital between themselves and the public school system. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/22314 |
| Date | 20 November 2013 |
| Creators | Perrone, Stephanie L., 1973- |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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