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Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education pp 954–964Cite as

Innovative Approaches to Teaching Sustainable Development

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Definition

The formal teaching of sustainable development is arguably innovative within itself. However, innovation in the teaching of sustainable development can be interpreted to imply nonmainstream, though not necessarily new, teaching practices, embedded in pedagogies identified as promoting more effective learning experiences.

Introduction

Education for sustainable development (ESD) is a fundamentally innovative educational field. As in many other areas, it naturally draws on long-standing progressive educational traditions and mirrors innovative education elsewhere. However, it now displays widely agreed characteristics that go beyond subject content to incorporate new agglomerations of education philosophy and praxis; ESD therefore exemplifies many individual pedagogical practices that while not strictly “new,” justify classification as innovative in that they remain marginal in formal university education.

Identifying innovations in the field of ESD can be challenging, as...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Global Sustainable Development, School of Cross-Faculty Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

    Alastair M. Smith

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  1. Alastair M. Smith
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Correspondence to Alastair M. Smith .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Life Sciences, World Sustainable Development Research and Transfer Centre, Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany

    Walter Leal Filho

Section Editor information

  1. University of Passo Fundo, Passo Fundo, Brazil

    Luciana Brandli

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Smith, A.M. (2019). Innovative Approaches to Teaching Sustainable Development. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11352-0_18

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