MySTREAM: EMPOWERING 21ST CENTURY SKILLS THROUGH TRANSDISCIPLINARY AND SUSTAINABILITY TECHNIQUES

Abstract

Sustainability Education (SE), Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and Education for Sustainability (ES) are the terms commonly used to describe the practice of teaching for sustainability. SE requires participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower students to change their behaviour and play role in embracing concept of sustainable development. SE promotes competencies like critical thinking, imagining future scenarios and making decisions in a collaborative way. These competencies can also be applied for sustainable research since education and research are interrelated. To develop SE, it may be relevant to address the sustainable development in the curriculum or syllabus. The three pillars of sustainable development; environmental, economic and social might be used and adapted in academic and research disciplines. There is no specific pedagogy for SE, but there are several elements that can be adapted in the teaching environment such as critical reflection, systemic thinking and analysis, participatory learning, thinking creatively for future scenarios and collaborative learning. For instance, transdisciplinary research in assessing environmental performance of pollutants can be practised by extending the research including the impact pathway of the pollutants on economic growth, society well-being (human health) and awareness level of community. Transdisciplinary research not only look at one specific discipline, rather than look at the issue from a holistic perspective by establishing the linkage between environmental aspect with social and economic aspects. Transdisciplinary research also requires triple helix effort by strengthening government-academia-community relationship. This will help to inculcate different stakeholders with a sense of duty towards safeguarding human health and environmental stewardship. Thus, the SE can be established through transdisciplinary research which integrate and move beyond discipline-specific approaches to address a common problem.

Keywords

• sustainability
• 21st century skills
• pedagogy
• transdisciplinary
• quality education.