As we rapidly approach the end of the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005Development ( -2014, a United Nations initiative whose goal is to integrate the principles, values and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning (ARIES 2009), a review of the state of the world's environmental health suggests that this goal may remain unrealised. In this paper, we argue that substantive changes are required in both curricula and pedagogical practice in higher education institutions to challenge dominant epistemologies and discourses and to unsettle current ways of thinking about, and acting in relation to, the environment. Central to such a shift, we argue, is the need for higher education curricula to be interdisciplinary and for pedagogical practices to work to build capacities in students for critical and reflective thinking. In support of this argument, we discuss a first year undergraduate interdisciplinary social science course in a faculty of environmental sciences that was specifically designed to develop critical and reflective thinkers. In this way, we present a range of evidence to support the efficacy of an interdisciplinary, student-centred approach in higher education institutions.

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