Digital Sustainability Education - Potential, Development Trends and Good Practices

Abstract

Digital sustainability education (DSE) is becoming increasingly relevant in higher Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) and spreads globally. DSE is fueled by the Covid-19-pandemic and urges lecturers, students and universities alike to break new ground in academic teaching. DSE impacts established approaches to ESD and raises questions of appropriate online teaching concepts, tools and enabling institutional, legal and political conditions. While lecturers are facing the challenge to conceptualize and implement innovative DSE concepts, students have to deal with new learning dynamics, requirements and obstacles. More and more universities are committed to or called upon to build enabling infrastructures for the spread and institutionalization of DSE. This working paper discusses core objectives and contextual conditions of DSE and sheds light on political, conceptual and didactical issues. It presents the outcomes of the online workshop “Digital Sustainability Education: Innovative Teaching Practices and Didactics in Times of Crisis” co-hosted by the Center for international Development and Environmental Research (ZEU) at Justus Liebig University Giessen and the Working Group Environmental Politics and Global Change of the German Political Science Association (25 – 26 March 2021). The paper maps eight good practice DSE teaching examples developed by lecturers from universities from different countries, introduces a toolbox and provides insights into individual and collective lessons learned. In doing so, the working paper contributes to current conceptual and political discussions on DSE and seeks to provide practical orientation for everyone engaged in the dynamic DSE field and university teaching in general.