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Ecological literacy in design education - A theoretical introduction

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journal contribution
posted on 2018-11-29, 13:17 authored by Joanna Boehnert
Sustainability educators developed the concept of ecological literacy to provide a basis for understanding environmental problems and developing new capacities and critical skills to respond effectively. This paper presents a theoretical introduction to ecological literacy for design education. It starts with a philosophical overview of why ecological literacy is neces­sary, including details of some of the planet’s vital signs. The paper then describes six ecologi­cal principles (networks, nested systems, cycles, flows, development and dynamic balance) along with associated design concepts (resilience, epistemological awareness, a circular econ­omy, energy literacy, emergence and the ecological footprint). The final section explains why critical ecological literacy is necessary to make the work of transforming unsustainable condi­tions and designing sustainable ways of living possible.

Funding

This research was suported by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder.

History

School

  • The Arts, English and Drama

Department

  • Arts

Published in

FORMakademisk

Volume

8

Issue

1

Citation

BOEHNERT, J., 2015. Ecological literacy in design education - A theoretical introduction. FORMakademisk, 8(1): 3.

Publisher

Form Akademisk - Forskningstidsskrift for Design Og Designdidaktikk, 8(1).

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/

Publication date

2015

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

eISSN

1890-9515

Language

  • en

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