Rebecca Laycock Pedersen

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Assistant Professor at University of Calgary

This chapter explores the concept of “activist learning for sustainability” and the role of activism and related pedagogies and the relationship to education for sustainable development (ESD). The chapter will reflect on a case study of student-led activism: the initiation of a “sustainable student house” devised and developed by students to allow...

We need research leading to timely, meaningful, contextually appropriate solutions for society’s wicked sustainability challenges. Though transdisciplinarity (TDR) is thought to be sustainability sciences’ modus operandi, there are many long-standing traditions of socially engaged research applied in sustainability, e.g., applied research, citizen...

Universities have an important role in moving society towards a more sustainable future. However, this will require us to repurpose universities, reorienting and refocusing the different university domains (education, research, campus, and outreach) towards sustainability. The governance structures and processes used to embed sustainability into th...

This report syntheses the main findings from a 2.5 year action research doctoral study of the National Union of Students’ Student Eats food growing scheme. The intended audiences for this report are university and students’ union staff that are working with student-led food gardens at their university. This report may also have relevance for staff...

University student-led food gardens are increasingly used to facilitate learning fostering pro-sustainability attitude and behaviour change. However, they are led by a transient student population, which impacts how they operate and the benefits they provide. This study undertakes the first explicit and empirical inquiry into how students’ transien...

This report syntheses the main findings from a 2.5 year action research doctoral study of the National Union of Students’ (NUS) Student Eats food growing scheme. The intended audience for this report is Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS) (formerly the National Union of Students’ sustainability team), but it may also have relevance for oth...

Purpose This paper aims to explore a single-institution case study of partnership working between students, the University and Students’ Union, through four student-led sustainability projects. The paper analyses the role and value of these partnerships and provides advice for other institutions on effective partnership working between these stakeh...

In an increasingly mobile world, transience is becoming the norm. Sustainable community food initiatives, therefore, must organise to withstand high turnover of volunteers. Using a case study of the United Kingdom’s National Union of Students’ food growing scheme in universities, this paper aims to map the causes and effects of short-term, irregula...

Against the background of an expanding urban agriculture movement, new food growing initiatives have been emerging in universities. Student-led food gardens in universities are exemplars of organisations with a transient volunteer population, an issue that is increasingly faced in the volunteering sector, including in urban agriculture. A transient...

Wynes and Nicholas (2017a Environ. Res. Lett. 12 1–9) recently published an article that reviewed academic and grey literature to identify the most impactful individual actions for reducing carbon emissions in developed countries, identifying having 'one fewer child' as by far the most impactful action. This action was recommended with little conte...

Alongside associated forms of socially and politically conscious food production, community food growing is routinely connected to a wide range of social and environmental benefits. However, robust evidence in support of these associations remains scant, and while the conversation has shifted in recent years to take account of the sometimes uninten...

Community gardens (CGs) in university settings are faced with challenges associated with a transient and inexperienced population of student gardeners, but they also have the potential to have a lasting impact on the food behaviours of many young people. This paper undertakes a systematic critical review of literature about University Community Gar...

International collaboration is central to the Sustainable Development agenda given environmental challenges that span national boundaries. Education for Sustainability therefore needs to account for international/intercultural understandings, such as though international collaborative degree programmes in Higher Education. This paper evaluates a mo...

The Community Garden (CG) movement makes up part of an 'alternative', and ideally more sustainable, food system. CGs in a university setting have been reported to have an impact on sustainability attitudes and behaviour, and their most common participants are students which have often just moved from home and are highly transient. Based on these tw...

Concerns about the decline in knowledge concerning food growing stemming stem from the Green Revolution, as well as the rapid urbanization since the beginning of the 20th Century. There is a gap in the literature about community gardening in industrialized English-speaking countries, and since sharing of knowledge is a well-documented achievement o...