In collaboration with the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) Centre of Excellence, researchers from across campus are excited to announce a Spring workshop series, looking into ’wicked sustainability problems’ in the context of education and research. Incorporating transdisciplinary perspectives from the School of Global Studies, School of Education and Social Work, School of Life Sciences, and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), this research workshop series will delve into global and local issues surrounding food systems, water, nature conservation and education.

In our final of the 'Wicked Sustainability Challenges' workshops, Lecturer in Childhood & Youth Dr Perpetua Kirby, and Senior Lecturer in Early Years & Primary Education Dr Rebecca Webb (SSRP Fellows from the School of Education and Social Work, University of Sussex) look at ‘wicked problems’ beyond learning, advocating for Education fit for Sussex Sustainability Challenges of the 21st Century.

Globally, there is a conflation of education with ‘learning’, without a clearer focus on thinking about wider educational purposes of what it is that students might do with what they learn. With a plethora of knowledge easily accessible, including the rapid emergence of sophisticated AI, how do we make decisions about what must be taught and to what end?

Learning, as Perpetua Kirby and Rebecca Webb suggest, is concerned with the transference and understanding of what already exists in the world. Knowing about sustainability issues is clearly an educational imperative that necessarily draws on that which is already known. However, it is never enough. Had this been the case, we would not be facing the acute crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss that we find ourselves in. Rather there is inherent uncertainty about how we might mitigate and adapt to current global threats which extend far beyond simply learning.

In this workshop, Perpetua Kirby and Rebecca Webb explore the role of the teacher in the academy beyond sharing what they know and examine purposes of education that extend to include student freedom: one that calls on them to actively formulate a unique response to what they encounter in the ‘classroom’. The speakers will also spotlight and examine examples of pedagogies that might be appropriate for such ends, that engage with the complexities, nuances, and uncertainties of sustainability issues. This is in order that all students engage with the existential dimensions inherent to living on a damaged planet, so that they might come to their own position and act in the world in order to transform it.

Come and help us unpeel this ‘wicked problem’, discuss how this relates to sustainability education in UK curricula, Higher Education and outside the classroom, explore what potential pathways might help tackle specific sustainability challenges through education and ultimately help move us towards a more sustainable and healthy future across the South Coast, UK and our planet.

*This workshop will feature an on-campus site visit to the ‘Forest Food Garden’ (weather permitting).