It was one of those days – back-to-back meetings, last-minute requests – before the more creative work could begin. Despite knowing that a walk could help my imagination, I stayed glued to my screen and succumbed to the project time pressures I was feeling. Unsurprisingly, progress was slow and my ideas just weren’t flowing.
Are you the elephant or the rider?
This highlights a common paradox: knowing doesn’t always lead to action. Jonathan Haidt’s “Elephant and Rider” analogy explains how emotions (the elephant) often overpower reason (the rider). Knowledge alone isn’t enough. To make better decisions, we need to cultivate further skills such as self-awareness of our emotional drivers and develop the ability to critically assess both ourselves and the context influencing behaviour.
So can we teach students to do this better? Frameworks such as Education for Sustainability (EfS) emphasise the integration of cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural learning to help us develop the competencies needed to turn awareness into purposeful action.
Nurturing competencies to navigate uncertainty and drive action
In today’s context, where the climate crisis intensifies uncertainty and increasingly impacts every aspect of our lives, addressing socio-emotional and behavioural elements in education is more important than ever. Despite decades of knowledge, governments and corporations have failed to take the necessary actions to address climate change with CO2 levels rising year on year, hitting record highs in 2024.
Individuals are often overwhelmed by the sheer scale and complexity of these systemic issues, feeling paralysed rather than empowered. Research shows that simply teaching scientific facts to young people doesn’t inspire action. Sustainable behaviours are more effectively motivated when tied to values, social norms, and a sense of personal efficacy, emphasising the need for educational approaches to integrate these elements alongside scientific knowledge.
Education for Sustainability in higher education
Education for Sustainability (EfS) provides the thinking skills and capabilities to equip learners to take critically informed action towards sustainable futures. It focuses on critical, reflective and creative thinking, systems and complexity thinking, futures thinking, values and world views, as well as participatory and partnership capabilities.
Western Sydney University, 2023
The EfS framework is based on experiential, participatory and action-oriented learning principles and connects the cognitive, socio-emotional and behavioural as the foundation for key capabilities needed to address complex challenges.
The key competencies include systems, futures and critical thinking, collaboration, problem solving and strategic competencies, as well as normative and self-awareness skills.
What does this look like in practice?
The UNESCO Greening Curriculum Guidance provides a roadmap for designing with these three learning domains and their key competencies. For instance, when students explore economic models (thinking), they reflect on intergenerational responsibility and the impact of linear models on future generations. This reflection fosters normative competency (being) – the ability to align personal values like responsibility and respect with sustainable behaviours, driving motivation towards adopting alternative economic models such as the circular or post-carbon economy. Students then reinforce this through hands-on projects, collaborating with local businesses to turn theoretical knowledge into practical, sustainable solutions with real-world impact (doing).
Unpacking EfS in Learning Design at UTS through play
During UTS Global Goals month the Education Portfolio’s Learning Design & Technology Unit created an interactive artwork on campus to explore EfS principles. Passersby were invited to engage with a Venn diagram and add their own ideas, using magazine cutouts or personal contributions to represent the 3 learning domains and key competencies.
The collage grew with informative and playful additions, encouraging reflection on how these elements connect. In the spirit of EfS, the installation exemplified elements of transformative learning through active, collaborative knowledge construction.
This project is just the beginning – stay tuned for more insights into how Education for Sustainability is shaping learning design at universities and inspiring a new generation to build a more sustainable future.
Great article Christina and excellent UNESCO resource, thank you!