Education for sustainable development: how can we fit it into the law curriculum?

contributors | abstract | presentation | biographies | paper

Contributors

Dr Hazel Dawe (Oxford Brookes University)

Intended format

Workshop

Abstract

Workshop covers:

• concerns about education for sustainable development
• better teaching; and
• flexibility of learning

This workshop will explore the place of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) within the academy and within the law curriculum using techniques such as brainstorming and word association.

The workshop aims to challenge preconceptions (or non-conceptions) of sustainable development (SD). Within the formal curriculum it will then examine which subjects lend themselves more readily to incorporation of SD into their curriculum and therefore already have a considerable SD component. The workshop will examine the different possible teaching approaches and some examples of best practice within other disciplines.

The workshop will explore which law subjects lend themselves to the integration of sustainability themes. Where subject do not readily demonstrate an SD component the workshop will explore different methods of incorporating sustainability concerns into teaching and learning materials. It will explore the advantages and problems of incorporating SD into the formal curriculum and encourage participants to consider the means of incorporating it into their own teaching. Examples will be provided where the presenter has incorporated SD issues into her own law teaching.

As well as looking at the formal curriculum, the workshop will briefly consider the campus curriculum and its importance as role model for students and therefore essential to the incorporation of SD into the formal curriculum. The Oxford Brookes Corporate Responsibility scheme will then be presented as an example of the campus curriculum.

Presentation

Short biographies of panel members

Hazel Dawe is a Senior Admissions Tutor at Oxford Brookes University. She has taught law at several UK universities, most recently at the London School of Economics, the University of Westminster. Her main subject area is Contract Law and she has also taught Law of Tort, Sale of Goods, Consumer Protection law and European Union Law.

Hazels’ PhD was on Austria’s nuclear prohibition Law and her member ship of the European Union. Her research interests are EU law, Energy Law, in particular Euratom, International Law. She has presented conference papers and published on the Euratom treaty.

Her more recent research has been on pedagogy. She has presented to the Learning in Law Conference twice previously, in 2006 and 2008. She will be presenting on Educating for Sustainable Development in January 2011.

Last Modified: 27 January 2011