The Affective Load of Sustainability Education: The implications of emotion for students' engagement and knowledge retention

Sarah Wolfe received a SSHRC Partnership Development grant to examine the role of emotion in post-secondary environmental education.

Dr. Gus Speth wrote: “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation – and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” Good science is unquestionably a necessary ingredient in our solutions to environmental problems, but scientific knowledge is never enough by itself. True, this knowledge can help us grasp the global scale of problems such as climate change, but these problems and their potential solutions are also deeply intertwined with psychological, cultural, economic, and political factors that operate mainly at the level of individuals, communities, and societies.

Many post-secondary educators depend on that “good science” to help their students identify and resolve environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and fresh-water scarcity. But these educators often assume, even if only implicitly, that more scientific knowledge about these problems will automatically lead to more “rational” personal behavior and public policies—and therefore to “better” environmental outcomes. What's missing, according to Speth, are the powerful tools to create the necessary “spiritual and cultural transformation.”

Our research team started from the premise that learning about environmental problems is qualitatively distinct from feeling that one can do something meaningful and positive to address those problems. Graduating with a degree in environmental studies or science does not currently correlate with graduates’ willingness to take even modest pro-environmental actions in their personal or professional lives. Our team wanted to know why that’s the case—and what can be done about it. The Partnership Development Grant supported four comparative case studies at the post-secondary level across two very different universities—the University of Waterloo and Royal Roads University—with environmental programs.

The findings will have implications far beyond Canada. As North American and international researchers try to grasp how emotion influences environmental awareness and citizen action/engagement, our research findings will help universities and instructors improve their interdisciplinary environmental programs, those programs’ pedagogical content and approach, and their students’ learning outcomes—with implications not just for these young adults’ well-being but also for their future contributions to society and the planet.

For more information on this research and our peer-reviewed publications, please see: https://sarahwolfe.ca/research-and-writing/
For more information about emotions and environmental issues, please see: https://seelab.ca/emotions/
For more information about working with Dr. Wolfe as part of a graduate degree, please see: https://seelab.ca/join-us/