A Decalogue for Education for Sustainability Across Environmental Generic Competencies

Abstract

The results of this research bring the possibility to the universities and their professors to create a course based on a sustainability vision across environmental education and the notion of competencies. The research responds to the question: “What capacities should university graduates have with respect to the environmental and sustainability area, which allows them to understand and influence the world around them?” Three stages were carried out in the methodological design: (1) analysis of institutional, curricular and pedagogical conditions of the host institution; (2) interviews with university professors, environmental employers and student survey and (3) design of generic environmental competencies and a proposal for a sustainability action plan. This paper highlights the last two stages of a curriculum, describing how knowledge, skills, performance and contexts of action were identified, analyzed and integrated, according to the findings of the previous stages of the research. One of the main contributions of this paper is the possibility of having a Decalogue as a set of tools for higher education institutions interested in incorporating the sustainability perspective in a pre-graduate curriculum.