Rolf Jucker

SILVIVA - Swiss Foundation for Experiental Environmental Education

Das Ausleben des natürlichen Bewegungs- und Entdeckungsdranges bildet ein elementares Grundbedürfnis von Kindern und eröffnet ihnen einen Zugang zu sich selbst, ihrer räumlichen und sozialen Umwelt. In diesem Entwicklungsprozess sind neben Familie und Schule auch räumliche Rahmenbedingungen der Lebenswelt bedeutsam, da sie die Möglichkeiten der Bew...

In a world challenged by increasingly complex crises, a sound understanding of reality and high quality learning become crucial elements for strengthening children and making societies more resilient and fit for the future. This chapter argues that outdoor learning—even given the fact that quite a few aspects of it are under-researched—can play an...

This open access book reviews evidence and case studies on the effects of outdoor learning on teachers and learners. It shows how real-world learning outside the classroom contributes to unlocking the full potential of learners, demonstrating its benefits for academic learning, social competencies, personal and emotional development, psychological...

The review summarised here found that there is no comprehensive or regular (repeated) survey of the scale of outdoor learning in the UK. There are some studies of specific outdoor learning activities (e.g., of particular types, or in particular parts of the UK). In these, some authors express concern about barriers to delivering outdoor learning an...

Was bedeutet hochwertige Bildung vor dem Hintergrund der gegenwärtigen gesellschaftlichen und ökologischen Herausforderungen? Wie können Kreativität, Forschungsdrang, Sozialkompetenz und Verantwortung gefördert und das Wissen für eine nachhaltige Entwicklung vermittelt werden? Die Beiträge in diesem Sammelband zum Thema Draußenlernen beleuchten sol...

Nature has a positive effect on people's health, well-being and ability to concentrate - especially for young people. This is confirmed by numerous renowned studies across a range of disciplines. It is all the more astonishing that school education - at least in Germany - traditionally takes place almost exclusively in classrooms. However, there ar...

Unter „zeitgemäßem Lernen“ verstehen viele in erster Linie einen durch digitale Technologien unterstützten Unterricht in modernen Schulräumen. Aber ist dies die einzig mögliche Antwort auf die großen Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts? Wir sind überzeugt, dass zeitgemäßes Lernen nach dem Leitbild einer Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung (BNE)...

Education for a viable future has never been more important than in our era of climate change, fake news, self-illusions, and political upheaval. Whether humanity will have a dignified future hangs in the balance. The urgency of finding sound solutions to a number of complex problems is obvious. We can’t really allow ourselves to get it wrong, but...

Have you ever wondered why the discussions on social media and in politics are so far removed from the accumulated, evidence-based knowledge we have on so many of the issues concerned? This book tries to connect the dots and bring together insights from many different fields. It aims to resist the temptation for easy answers and poses some hard que...

Leben auf der Erde entsteht, blüht und vergeht nur, weil es eingebettet ist in ein Netz aus Bezie­hungen und Verbindungen – ein Ökosystem. Der Baum ist dafür ein perfektes Beispiel. Wie ein Baum wächst und lebt, wirkt auf den ersten Blick wie Zauberei. Doch es lohnt sich, genauer hinzusehen. Es genügt, unter die Rinde zu schauen, Wurzeln auszugrabe...

In einer Zeit, wo es einerseits viele Hinweise auf Naturentfremdung oder ‘nature deficit disorder’ gibt, wo andererseits aber auch aus Lern- und Hirnforschung zunehmend gut gesicherte Erkenntnisse sich mehren, wie erfolgreiches Lernen funktioniert, erhält Lernen in und mit der Natur eine zunehmende Bedeutung. Denn draussen lernen verspricht eine Vi...

It is almost universally accepted that most of the UN SDGs cannot be implemented successfully unless meaningful, effective, and transformative learning processes accompany the implementation. The article shows that learning outside - in and with nature - can offer great possibilities for enabling and enhancing the development of underutilized, mult...

Was kann mit dem gegenwärtig inflationär verwendeten Slogan „Neues Lernen, neue Räume“ gemeint sein? Der vorliegende Beitrag reflektiert Schnittstellen zwischen Lernen und Raum und plädiert für eine mehrdimensionale Raumtheorie. Auf eine kurze Analyse, was mit „neuem Lernen“ assoziiert wird, folgt eine Argu- mentation für das Lernen im Freien als s...

Dieses Buch bietet eine Fülle von Unterrichtsideen, und zwar für alle Fachbereiche der Primarstufe. Sämtliche Aktivitäten sind praxiserprobt, leicht umsetzbar und für den Lehrplan 21 relevant. Die Natur ist hier nicht bloss Zugabe, sondern ein wichtiges Mittel, um die fachspezifischen und fächerübergreifenden Unterrichtsziele zu erfüllen: Sie ermög...

Ellis' book is a classical example of Sokal-like intellectual bullshitting: use elaborate jargon in order to conceal that you have nothing noteworthy to say...

In Eco-Justice thinking and practice, as well as in environmental and sustainability education more broadly, we are very much entrenched in mental models and concepts such as nature and emotions are good, humans and science are bad, indigenous people hold wisdom vs. modernity is oppressive etc. We attach great emotional value to these beliefs and c...

This book examines the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programs in schools across Europe. It describes and analyzes how individual countries and the region as a whole have established teaching and learning methods to help students develop the competencies needed to be part of a sustainable society. Featuring chapters...

As in many other countries the transformation of the Swiss education system into one that is conducive to a sustainable society is difficult. The chapter will look at what has been achieved since the beginning of the UN Decade of ESD in the context of the Swiss School System, what is planned for the next years and how these activities relate to the...

This chapter provides an introduction to the volume. It summarises and brings into focus the issues raised by the implementation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) programmes in schools across Europe. It draws together the main lessons learnt throughout the UN Decade of ESD (DESD), based on the state– of– the– art of ESD theory and conc...

The discourse of education for sustainability has been severely limited by the fact that it largely refuses to acknowledge important insights from other fields of learning and knowledge. A denial to engage with central insights with regard to how the world and more specifically how human interaction with the human and non-human world work, means th...

Matthew Hiebert, Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 2013, 96 pages. ISBN (paperback) 978-1-84929-090-6; ISBN (e-book) 978-1-84859-146-2. Available at www.thecommonwealth.org/publications (in the US from Stylus Publishing LLC, VA, USA, www.commonwealthpublications-usa.com)

As in many other countries, the transformation of the Swiss education system into one that is conducive to a sustainable society is difficult. This article attempts to clarify a framework within which such change could happen. Following an extensive review process, the author has compiled essential learning approaches, knowledge, skills, values and...

The changing context for quality assurance and enhancement in education in the UK and elsewhere presents both an opportunity and a challenge because it offers the possibility of integrating sustainable development into all quality systems. One consequence is the alignment of a number of policy developments to provide a more coherent and integrated...

The World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg made it clear that political leadership the world over is incapable of rising to the challenges of sustainability. Yet, most of the hundred or so world leaders who attended have a higher education degree from some of the world's most prestigious universities. This paper tries to ad...

A report for The Higher Education Academy November 2005 "The human assault on the terrestrial environment shows no signs of abating and some signs of spilling over into non-terrestrial environments. … Many are appalled by this destruction … because of what it implies for themselves, their children, their friends, other creatures, the biomass [globa...

In this article I argue that it is impossible to look at educational issues before we develop a clear understanding of the dominant ideologies that currently perpetuate unsustainability. Only if we appreciate the pervasiveness and the fallacies of such concepts as "development," "growth," and "progress" within a limited biosphere can we start to se...

This essay first tries to argue, provocatively, that the view which since the 1990s has increasingly been taken to be 'commonsensical', namely that political literature is necessarily bad literature, does not stand up to scrutiny. The second part of the essay provides a detailed analysis of two poems by Braun, 'Abschied von Kochberg' and 'Nach dem...

Our Common Illiteracy takes seriously the international consensus that Education for Sustainability (EfS) is crucial to the survival of humankind. It establishes the principles of a sustainable society and performs a rigorous assessment of the reasons for our unsustainable present. Only on that foundation, it is argued, can the role of education in...

Presents the results of an Internet survey of all the humanities faculties in Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the UK and of a review of the international debate both on sustainability in general and education for sustainability in particular. Argues for a complex, transdisciplinary and broad approach to education for sustainability (EfS)....

1 There is a huge gulf between what can be done and what is being done. (Peter Melchett, Greenpeace U.K.) Utopieforschung, im besonderen auch literaturwissenschaftliche, krankt an den verschiedensten Problemen. Entweder bewegt sie sich im luftleeren Raum endlos um sich selbst auf der Suche nach einer treffenden Definition, was denn Utopie nun sein...

Dr Rolf Jucker is Senior Lecturer in German Studies and Sustainability at the University of Wales Swansea. Since a number of years he is working to turn his university and other UK higher education institutions into more sustainable units, with a particular focus on eco-justice education/education for sustainability. He has recently published Our C...