Over the past decade the SDU has been involved in various Education for Sustainability (EfS) initiatives on a national, regional and international level.
In line with the UNESCO Global Action Programme and in response to the Sustainable Development Goals, the main focus has been the integration of EfS into mainstream education.
This is achieved by the development of exciting new digital resources for schools and the concomitant teacher professional development programmes. Current interventions include the development of Moodle-based blended learning resources for Intermediate Phase (IP) in-service and pre-service teachers. These resources provide educators with the EfS tools and e-learning strategies to enhance their teaching and learning. Each interactive module has a strong focus on the development of transversal skills and transformative environmental learning. (See the SDU TSEEP project).
SDU is part of a collaborative multi-disciplinary EfS teacher education programme in South Africa through the Fundisa for Change programme. Collaborating with Fundisa, the SDU offers courses in the Social Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences and Natural Sciences throughout South Africa. (see SDU Fundisa) .
At a regional level SDU has ties with the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) on Sustainability starts with teachers project which has been instrumental in supporting EfS change projects in Higher Education Institutes in South Africa.
SDU actively engages with educational researchers and has presented research at EEASA.
SDU also partners with ESDInnovate, an international collaboration which fosters collaboration between and among teacher educators from different countries and their students/teachers. This programme’s goal is to establish an intellectual dialogue on the response of teacher education to the Sustainable Development Goals and, at the same time, sharing local and global experiences. In 2018 an elearning conference was hosted by ESDInnovate in Collaboration with the International Network of Teacher Education Institutions and Kappa Delt Phi in Indianapolis.