Education for sustainable living: exploring the landscape of one urban high school’s sustainability practices and values

Abstract

Education for Sustainable Living (ESL) requires a whole-system pedagogical shift that changes the discourse from a positivistic worldview into one founded on ecological principles. The emerging environmental and sociopolitical challenges of the 21st century are complex, and schools present an important platform embracing sustainable changes. This participatory action research surveyed staff attitudes and student values from one Manitoban urban high school, to better understand the school culture of sustainability. In addition, a school wide Equity Conference was profiled for contributions to ESL through student exit slips; and a focus group with teachers where survey data was discussed also became part of the data corpus. The intent of this research was to understand on a deeper level how sustainability projects and initiatives are related to a culture of sustainability school wide. From these findings, recommendations to improve a whole-school approach to sustainability are provided.