This article reports on the fourth stage of an evolving study to develop a systems model for embedding education for sustainability (EfS) into preservice teacher education. The fourth stage trialled the extension of the model to a comprehensive state-wide systems approach involving representatives from all eight Queensland teacher education institutions and other key policy agencies and professional associations. Support for trialling the model included regular meetings among the participating representatives and an implementation guide. This article describes the first three stages of developing and trialling the model before presenting the case study and action research methods employed, four key lessons learned from the project, and the implications of the major outcomes for teacher education policies and practices. The Queensland-wide, multi-site case study revealed processes and strategies that can enable institutional change agents to engage productively in building capacity for embedding EfS at the individual, institutional, and state levels in preservice teacher education. Collectively, the project components provide a system-wide framework that offers strategies, examples, insights, and resources that can serve as a model for other states and/or territories wishing to implement EfS in a systematic and coherent fashion.

The first research symposium, organised in conjunction with the Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) biennial conference, began with a dialogue between scholars at three different academic career stages. As we all entered the field at different periods in its development, the first part of our presentation and this article provide our perspectives on the context, approaches and issues that characterised the field at the time we became involved in environmental education (EE) and EE research. The second part of this article presents the lessons we have learnt from EE research, and where we see the field headed in the future.

Networks are increasingly recognised as advantageous when creating and embedding cultural change within organisations. This paper explores and problematises ideas around networks for education for sustainability (EfS), specifically in relation to the implementation of the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI), a national, whole-school approach to EfS. In three Australian states - New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland – AuSSI has been implemented in different ways. In examining the use of products, facilitators and networks to embed initiatives such as AuSSI in Australian schools, we propose a “continuum of cultural change strategies” as a framework for thinking about each of these approaches to creating organisational and cultural change for sustainability. We anticipate that such a framework may assist where choices need to be made in relation to the kinds of capacity building processes that might best achieve “deep and wide” change within schools hoping to engender significant cultural change.

This paper uses the work of Weber and Foucault to explore the ways in which environmental education may operate as a site for forming and maintaining particular ethical competencies which most environmental educators argue are necessary in order to live in an ‘environmentally sustainable' manner. Environmental education practices, as evidenced in the Earthkeepers program, are examined to show how environmental education may be working in quite particular ways to construct specific ethical abilities and competencies in students. It is argued that we need to be far more concerned with and aware of the actual means we use to encourage students to live in an ‘environmentally sustainable' fashion.

Teacher education is widely recognised as a key strategy that is yet to be effectively utilised to embed environmental education and/or education for sustainability in schools. This paper reports on a research study that examined a range of pre-service teacher education initiatives, both in Australia and internationally, that were seeking to reorient teacher education towards environmental sustainability. This paper reports on six factors utilised across the initiatives that were critical to their success. These were (1) the nature and length of funding arrangements; (2) the range and quality of partnerships and networks; (3) the curriculum focus and the teaching and learning processes used; (4) the nature of, and incentives for, participant engagement; (5) the level at which a change was being sought; and (6) the use of evaluation as a tool for learning and ongoing improvement. This paper discusses why and how each of these six factors proved critical and explores the implications for initiatives seeking to reorient teacher education towards environmental sustainability.

We are living in an era of market-driven, globalised economies characterised by reduced public investments in what, until now, have been considered public goods and services. In Australia and elsewhere, education, and higher education in particular, has seen steady declines in government funding. This has prompted universities to become much more entrepreneurial and to seek out new funding opportunities to support their teaching and research activities. This paper reflects on the personal and professional dilemmas and challenges we faced as two early career environmental education researchers who were commissioned to undertake research for a private corporation. As a result of issues raised during this process, we engaged in a critical reflection of our perceptions and feelings about our involvement in the project. In essence, dilemmas and challenges centred around two issues: (1) control/ ownership of the research; and (2) the clash between corporate and university values. This paper explores these issues and suggests that greater mindfulness on the part of individual researchers as well as the development of better university-corporate partnership processes and protocols might provide useful starting points for overcoming such dilemmas and for moving forward with university-corporate research partnerships.

Pre-service teacher education institutions are large and complex organisations that are notoriously difficult to change. One factor is that many change efforts focus largely on individual pre-service teacher educators altering their practice. We report here on our experience using a model for effecting change, which views pre-service teacher education institutions and educators as a part of a much broader system. We identified numerous possibilities for, and constraints on, embedding change, but focus only on two in this article: participants’ knowledge of change strategies and their leadership capacities. As a result of our study findings and researcher reflections, we argue that being a leader in an academic area within pre-service teacher education does not equate to leadership knowledge or skills to initiate and enact systems-wide change. Furthermore, such leadership capacities must be explicitly developed if education for sustainability is to become embedded in pre-service teacher education.

It is 7 years since we wrote this article, yet the reorientation of teacher education towards sustainability remains a challenge. However, there have been some pockets of progress internationally and in Australia (Belgeonne, Clough, Inman, Rogers, & Warwick, 2014; UNECE, 2012).

This article presents a discussion on a study undertaken by academics within the Griffith School of Environment, Brisbane, Australia that sought to explore the potential of an Indigenised curriculum to attract and retain Indigenous students, and thereby facilitate greater participation of Indigenous students in science. The article highlights the need for staff to be both reflective and reflexive about the limitations their particular knowledge systems may impose on Indigenous ways of knowing and knowledge systems. The article also acknowledges the need for professional development opportunities for staff prior to any attempts towards Indigenisation of the curriculum.