Special Issue "Innovative Pedagogies for Cultivating Leadership amidst the Climate Change Crisis"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jessica Ostrow Michel
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Guest Editor
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Interests: higher education; teaching and learning; sustainability; sustainability education; interdisciplinary subject matter
Dr. Michaela Zint
E-Mail
Guest Editor
School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
Interests: education for sustainability; communication for sustainability; higher edcation, evaluation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A growing body of research is examining climate change education, in part due to the urgent need for educational programs to prepare the next generation of students to help lead us toward a more sustainable future (Anderson 2012; Monroe et al., 2019; Wheeler & von Braun 2013). One chief need, today, is to stop the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (Overpeck, 2020), and to do so, we need to develop creative, resilient change agents capable of leading societal transformation (Baker-Shelley, 2016). Higher education has a critical role to play in addressing the urgent climate change-related challenges confronting society (Edwards, 2012; Orr, 2005; Sterling, 2004). And, one of the main ways higher education has the potential for impact is through preparing students to be successful agents of change. The period 2010–2019 represents the hottest decade ever measured on Earth, and 2019 was the second-hottest year ever measured (NASA/NOAA report, 2020). Time is of the essence; we must successfully educate our students, who will be at the helm of this crisis. To date, climate change education has been studied almost exclusively at the K-12 education level (Monroe et al. 2019) and, thus, empirical evidence on how to prepare transformative agents of change on climate change in higher education is lacking.

We propose to address this gap by facilitating and supporting research by teams throughout the faculty at the University of Michigan and their students with respect to innovative pedagogies that have the potential to develop leaders willing and able to bring about transformative change. The proposed Special Issues will share findings from this suite of research studies as well as identify ways that these innovative pedagogies can be applied across higher education institutions nationally and internationally.

Dr. Jessica Ostrow Michel
Dr. Michaela Zint
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • higher education innovation
  • curriculum design
  • teaching
  • learning
  • assessment
  • climate change education
  • climate change pedagogy
  • climate change leadership
  • climate change agents

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
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