Nalele:Level^UP – Strengthening the implementation of ESD at universities.

Developing structures for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for multipliers at selected universities in Germany

Teresa Ruckelshauß, Prof. Dr. Alexander Siegmund

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is an important educational approach to empower people to shape a more sustainable development of the world. ESD affects all areas of education and should also be implemented at universities, since future decision-makers are trained there. Intense training of multipliers is necessary in order to permanently anchor further training offers to promote ESD skills among university lecturers in university didactics. Multipliers must first acquire in-depth knowledge, methods and skills on ESD and various sustainability issues themselves in order to being able to pass it on to university lecturers. The participating multipliers are supported by networking offers and coaching in conducting their own ESD courses. In addition, digital ESD teaching and learning material is designed which enables the multipliers to deepen the relevant content independently and further develop the material to use it in their own courses.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is of central importance for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to implement ESD at all levels of the education system, multipliers must be empowered to teach the relevant skills – this is emphasised by the ESD 2030 roadmap and other relevant papers. An advanced training campaign for multipliers as well as the development of digital educational offers on ESD is required. The implementation of ESD courses in higher education is of great importance, since students as future decision-makers and teachers have a particularly large leverage effect in business, administration and society.

In order to offer professional development courses to promote ESD skills among university lecturers (e.g. the course which was developed as part of the project "Learn to teach sustainability" – Nalele, project at the Heidelberg University of Education from 2020-2023) to be structurally anchored in university didactics an intensive training of multipliers in the sense of a train-the-trainer approach is necessary. Multipliers must first acquire in-depth knowledge, methods and skills on ESD and various sustainability issues themselves in order to being able to pass it on to university lecturers. The participating multipliers are supported by networking offers and coaching in conducting their own ESD courses. In addition, target group-specific digital ESD teaching and learning material is designed which enables the multipliers to deepen the relevant content independently, regardless of location and time, and to further develop the material to use it in their own courses. While the training and counseling formats for multipliers are to be anchored at several model centers throughout Germany, both the networking offers and the material will be made accessible to all everyone who is interested.

Project period: 01.07.2023 – 30.06.2026

Funding: Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF, grant number 01JO2306)

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