Environmental and sustainability issues prevail in modern society. Southern Africa, where this study is based, is one of the regions most at risk from intersecting issues of climate health risk, and poverty-related ills. Education has the potential to facilitate catalytic transformation of society through development of understandings of these intersecting environment and sustainability concerns, and to support engagements in more sustainable social practices oriented towards the common good. This requires a rethinking of education within a wider common good frame. It also has implications for how quality education is considered. However, little is said of how this could be done, especially in teacher education. The paper shares two cases of teacher educators' change project experiences, as they emerged via professional development support and the mediatory processes applied in courses conducted by the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP) aimed at enhancing professional capacity of teacher educators and other environmental educators for mainstreaming environment and sustainability education (ESE) 1 . These courses are framed using a change project approach, and involve teacher educators as main participants. In-depth data were generated from interviews with two teacher educators, their assignment write-ups, and observations of their teacher education practice. Realist social theory, particularly the principle of emergence, was used to trace the emergence of change in teacher education practice. Sociocultural learning theory was used to explain mediation of learning-oriented changes in teacher education practice. We illustrate how the change project model and approach contributed to mediating change in practice, showing emergent attributes of capacity for mainstreaming ESE and elements of a concept of quality education among course participants oriented towards the common good. In conclusion, we argue that ESE seems to be a sensitising construct for initiating and sustaining change for ESE in teacher education. In addition, the change project has proved to be a potential vehicle for mainstreaming the notion and practice of ESE into social systems and teacher education 1 In this paper we use the term, environment and sustainability education (ESE), to indicate that it includes an emphasis on environmental education(EE), and education for sustainable development (ESD). ESE, as used in this paper, includes a strong focus on the interrelated nature of environmental, societal, political, and economic concerns, and the way in which this term is used is oriented towards the wider common good. practices. We argue that reflexive ESE praxis provides a sensitising focus, initiating quality education with humanising properties necessary for the common good.

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) was added to the South African Geography school curriculum when the Curriculum Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) was implemented from 2012. Many in-service teachers who qualified prior to 2014 did not cover this concept during their initial teacher education qualification because it was not part of the curriculum at that time. To address this deficiency, a teacher professional development (TPD) module was developed by the Fundisa for Change programme and offered to a selection of in-service high school Geography teachers. Transformative learning theory helped to understand the pedagogical practices used by teachers after attending the Fundisa for Change teacher professional development programme, in particular the use of a learner-centred approach. Using a small-scale, qualitative and interpretive case study method, the influence of this short TPD course on the teaching of climate change in the Geography CAPS curriculum on teachers’ pedagogical practices was investigated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, document analysis and lesson observations. Data were analysed using both inductive thematic and deductive analysis. Findings from this small sample of five teachers and their practices suggest that despite attending the programme, most of the participating teachers did not sufficientlyintegrate climate change education in their Geography classroom practices. The majority of the research participants did not implement the learner-centred teaching methods covered in the course. It is therefore recommended that a teacher professional development programme should be incorporated into longer-term and preferably ongoing professional development programmes so as to adequately foster climate change education in classroom practices. Keywords: Geography, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), climate change education, teacher professional development, learner-centred pedagogies

Teachers and learners bring tacit as well as explicit knowledge into learning contexts. In the science classroom, learners' tacit knowledge can involve sustainability practices that have been passed down for many generations and have enabled people to survive in their particular environment and derive benefit from it. This study examines an example of such a practice that was observed in a rural community. The study sought to establish whether such a sustainability practice could be incorporated into the formal science teacher training classroom with a view to expanding the teaching and learning of science curriculum concepts. The study was carried out through observation of rural participants as they conducted certain sustainability practices as well as through interviews with the participants. Student teachers preparing for lesson planning and teaching presentations (as part of their peer-teaching activities) engaged with these sustainability practices in a six-phase process. Socio-cultural approaches guided the analysis. The study showed that, through a carefully considered methodological approach, it was possible to use those practices with which learners were familiar in their daily lives-that is, their habitual indigenous knowledge practices (IKPs)-to unpack and explain related scientific concepts from the school science curriculum in the classroom (habitual practices of classroom science) (Bourdieu, 1998). The study illustrated how knowledge of science can be developed from context to concept. The study was only conducted with student teachers in a peer-teaching context, but it would be interesting to investigate how such an approach could be used by student teachers during their teaching practice as well as by teachers who teach at the secondary school level.

Chapter 6

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