Conference: Education and the Transition to a Sustainable Society
Friday 23 April 2004, Dublin Institute of Technology, Aungier Street, Dublin 2
"The great challenge of our time is to build and nurture sustainable communities - communities that are designed in such a way that their ways of life, businesses, economies, physical structures, and technologies do not interfere with nature's inherent ability to sustain life. ... This understanding is what we call ecological literacy. Being ecologically literate means understanding these basic principles of organization of ecological communities and being able to embody them in the daily life of human communities. Teaching this ecological knowledge - which may be called 'principles of ecology,' 'principles of sustainability,' 'principles of community,' or even the 'basic facts of life' - will be the most important role of education in the [21st] century." Fritjof Capra |
The inspiration for this meeting came from a one-day conference Education for Sustainable Development: The Challenge for Higher, Further and Adult Education which took place last March at the University of Wales, Swansea. The proceedings can be found at website www.swan.ac.uk/environment/esdconference.htm.
Since that meeting, we have networked widely and believe that the time is right to raise these issues in both parts of Ireland. This meeting is the first step towards that aim. One of the outcomes will be to widen the network of interested people. Another will be to discover something about the provision of education for sustainability, and to make an assessment of need. On this occasion, we wish to address third level, life long leaning/community education, and professional needs.
We have formed the Irish Institute of Sustainability Education to carry this work forward. During the course of this Conference, we shall explain more about the Institute and its plans.
We are delighted to acknowledge the support and encouragement we have received from Airtricity, one of Europe's leading fully integrated renewable energy companies, and from Professor Brian Norton, President of Dublin Institute of Technology, and his colleagues.
The charge for attending the conference is 50 Euro or 35 pounds. Please make cheques payable to 'IISE', and send to: 'IISE', The Gibson Institute for Land, Food & Environment, Queen's University of Belfast, 3 Lennoxvale, Malone Road, Belfast BT9 5BY.
Any enquiries should be sent by e-mail to the Sustainability Education Working Party, sewp@gn.apc.org and NOT to the Gibson Institute.
We shall send you further particulars about the venue on receipt of your booking.
We hope to meet you at the Conference.
John Bartlett (Institute of Technology, Sligo)
W Alan Strong (UU, Jordanstown)
John Barry (QUB)
Michael O'Donnell (QUB)
Geraint Ellis (QUB)
Tony Weekes (Visiting, DIT)
Jude Stephens (QUB)
