{"id":7214,"date":"2018-04-10T02:47:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T02:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7214"},"modified":"2018-04-10T02:47:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T02:47:37","slug":"unesco-downgrades-geoscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2018\/04\/10\/unesco-downgrades-geoscience\/","title":{"rendered":"UNESCO downgrades geoscience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I've now had time to read UNESCO's\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/unesdoc.unesco.org\/images\/0026\/002614\/261445e.pdf\"><em>Issues and trends in Education\u00a0for Sustainable Development<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 [<i>A. Leicht, J. Heiss and W. J. Byun (eds)<\/i>]. \u00a0\u00a0Chapter 10,\u00a0<em>Monitoring ESD: lessons learned and ways forward<\/em> by\u00a0Ashley\u00a0Stepney\u00a0Lockhart (pps. 215 \u2013 232) stood out for me, particularly this on p. 219:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p class=\"\">\"Much of what informs better policy-making and practice is the result of evaluation of a specific, contextualized educational process, not simply test scores. \u00a0Lower test scores may provide information about a group of learners\u2019 general knowledge and skill in ESD, if the questions truly correspond to common principles in the subject and not a supposed proxy version such as geoscience. [FOOTNOTE]. \u00a0Lower test scores may suggest that changes are needed to inputs, but do not provide clues as to how to make those changes or the underlying motivation, aside from improving test scores. \u00a0Improving test scores has little to do with real ESD learning or advancing sustainable development; test scores are only an indication of competence.\"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div class=\"\">The FOOTNOTE in the paper\u00a0says this:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div class=\"\">\"It is not appropriate to equate subjects that may teach about the natural environment with ESD. \u00a0For example, in geoscience or earth science, learning focuses on areas such as plate tectonics and physical and chemical processes from inside the Earth\u2019s surface that affect its crust. It does not focus on human-made problems such as climate change, etc.\"<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>Indeed it is not. \u00a0Did you wonder why 'geoscience' was singled out here for criticism? \u00a0Or whether anyone teaching the geosciences really sees it as a proxy for ESD? \u00a0I'd say they have better things to do, and that they get up in the morning knowing that teaching the geosciences is valuable in the real world \u2013 which no one's ever been able to say about ESD. \u00a0And then there's the difference between geoscience, a subject, and ESD which, presumably, is a set of pedagogical-cultural processes (education <em>for<\/em> ...) which cannot be taught because they <em>embody<\/em> teaching. \u00a0Unless, of course, ESD has now been refined to the extent that UNECSO wants it to be seen as a high-status subject. \u00a0Happily, however, that is not in UNESCO's gift.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>For a comment on the difficulties of holding the line on the one important point being made in the footnote, see this <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2011\/07\/05\/one-of-the-most-challenging-conclusions-for-hefce\/\">account<\/a><\/strong> of sustainability research in the UK in 2007.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>My own Endnote would be to wonder what on earth \"learners\u2019 general knowledge and skill in ESD\" is. \u00a0This is obviously nonsense which is sad for all concerned. \u00a0What's sadder, though, is that no one in UNESCO seems to <em>know<\/em> that it's nonsense.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I've now had time to read UNESCO's\u00a0Issues and trends in Education\u00a0for Sustainable Development\u00a0 [A. Leicht, J. Heiss and W. J. Byun (eds)]. \u00a0\u00a0Chapter 10,\u00a0Monitoring ESD: lessons learned and ways forward by\u00a0Ashley\u00a0Stepney\u00a0Lockhart (pps. 215 \u2013 232) stood out for me, particularly...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-new-publications"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}