Towards a more sustainable future: simple recommendations to integrate planetary health into education.

Salvador Baena-Morales, Andreas Fröberg

Journal: The Lancet. Planetary health 2023;7(10):e868-e873

PMID: 37821165

Abstract

This Personal View presents recommendations aimed at integrating planetary health into various stages of education, which are simple but effective, and designed with teachers in training and those who have not yet considered how to incorporate UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development into their teaching practice. However, the constantly evolving nature of the Education for Sustainable Development programme must be recognised, and the importance of being able to adapt teaching methods to meet the changing needs of students as they progress through their educational journey should be highlighted. Therefore, this Personal View considers the cognitive, social, and ethical evolution of students and offers specific recommendations for preschool, primary, secondary, and university education levels. We recommend that educators should focus on teaching students to critically evaluate data on sustainability and to develop innovative solutions to environmental challenges. We also highlight the importance of incorporating practical projects, using active methods that promote skills related to caring for the planet, or the importance of situated learning that attends to the particularities of each context. In this way, students can develop skills and values that contribute to a more sustainable future. The recommendations made here aim to provide educators and researchers with simple but effective ways to integrate planetary health into education.

Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Address: Department of General Didactics and Specific Didactics, Faculty of Education, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain; Department of Physical Education, Faculty of Education, Valencian International University, Valencia, Spain. Electronic address: [email protected].; Department of Food and Nutrition and Sport Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden. Electronic address: [email protected].

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