“Not Everyone Has the Same Privileges”: Filling the Gaps in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Through Environmental Justice Lessons

Pieto, Rachael

“Not Everyone Has the Same Privileges”: Filling the Gaps in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Through Environmental Justice Lessons

Author(s)

Pieto, Rachael

Date Issued

April 10, 2023

Abstract

One of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is to provide quality education as a way to “promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” while also ensuring that children especially have access to inclusive and equitable education opportunities by 2030 (United Nations, 2022). This framework does not support the education that will be necessary as the climate crisis worsens because of its lack of clear standards among other issues as well as the complete absence of the discussion of environmental justice (EJ). EJ is largely absent from the goals, targets, and indicators of the SDGs despite the fact that many environmental problems are problems of justice, and some researchers have concluded that the exclusion of an explicit discussion of justice in any of the SDGs could lead to negative consequences for EJ. The subject of environmental education (EE) and its teachings can serve as the intersection between general education and environmental justice that the SDGs severely need, as the foundational teachings of EE dictate that the field is extremely interdisciplinary and center EJ. This research project proposes environmental education lesson plans that focus on EJ through systems-thinking, open-ended questions, and place-based learning to serve as a basis of pivotal EE teachings that reflect the original intention and definition of “environmental education” created in the 1977 Tbilisi Conference.

Major

Environmental Science

Honors

Environmental Science and Sustainability, 2023

First Reader(s)

Pallant, Eric T.