Title: The green campus is also a virtual one

Authors: John Blewitt

Addresses: Aston University, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK

Abstract: This paper analyses the role of education for sustainability as enabling future sustainability practitioners to become key change agents and leaders. It is important that generic skills and understandings are married to a capability to lead beyond one|s disciplinary or professional authority. |Academic| education for future (and current) sustainability professionals should focus on transdisciplinary learning and research, new media affordances and distributed learning. This raises important questions about the nature of experiential learning and the meaning of |living sustainability|. With reference to various developments in e-learning, including the European Union|s aim to establish a virtual campus for a sustainable Europe, this paper argues that the digital environment is an integral part of our lifeworld connecting people to place, with each other and to possibilities for creative transdisciplinary inquiry. The role of new media in education for sustainability is rarely discussed, is under theorised and its potential largely ignored.

Keywords: new media; higher education; sustainability; leadership; sustainable development; change management; distributed learning; transdisciplinary research; transdisciplinary learning; e-learning; electronic learning; online learning; virtual campus.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESD.2010.035616

International Journal of Environment and Sustainable Development, 2010 Vol.9 No.4, pp.392 - 400

Published online: 01 Oct 2010 *

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