Slideshow presented at ECREA, the European Communications Conference, Hamburg October 2010

1. Ecological
Literacy
www.eco-labs.org

2. The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy
Jody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Why? Context Levels of Learning & Engagement
Presently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative
capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are 1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
What? Systems, Networks, Values
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
complexity and think in terms of systems to address current
ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful
tools to help with this learning process. 3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
How? Transformational Learning Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
Stephen Sterling, 2009
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.
ECOLOGICAL
Actions
GOOD
DESIGN Ideas / Theories
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perce ption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-
B: KNOWING (Conception) psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization A critical understanding of pattern, if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first consequence and connectivity intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move Donella Meadows, 1982
towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to C: DOING (Actio n)
the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, The ability to design and act relationally,
so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the integratively and wisely. References
Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
ecological sustainable systems of nature. Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Fritjof Capra, 2003 Stephen Sterling, 2009
j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org
This poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org

3. 1. Climate Change

6. Recent temperature changes GLOBAL STEP 2
Temperature Choice
Models vs. Scenarios
Bars show the range in
year 2100 produced by
several scenarios.
6.0
5.5
5.0
A1FI - Rapid growth, fossil fuel intensive.
Temperature Rise, degrees Celsius
4.5
A2 - High energy consumption, rapid population growth.
4.0
A1B - Rapid growth, balanced energy sources.
3.5
B2 - Environmental preservation and local solutions.
3.0
A1T - Rapid growth, new, non-carbon, technology.
2.5
IS92a - "Business as usual" IPCC.
2.0
B1 - Environmentally and socially conscious global approach.
1.5
1.0
0.5 Scenarios
A1B
0.0
A1T
A1FI
-0.5 A2
B1
-1.0 B2
IS92a
1700 1800 1900 2000 2100
Year
"The Game Plan" slideset release 1.0, March 13 2008 43

7. Climate Safety. PIRC

11. 2. Resource Depletion
Springer-Verlag. The New Scientist.

12. Earth’s Natural Wealth: an Audit. The New Scientist

13. 3.Peak Oil
The Oil Age. Information design by Dave Menninger. 2006

16. The Oil Crunch
Securing the UK’s energy future
First report of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES)
The Oil Crunch.
The UK Industry Taskforce
on Peak Oil and Energy Security.

17. 4.Biodiversity
Living Planet Report 2006. WWF

19. 4.Water

24. The Visual Communication of Ecological Literacy
Jody Joanna Boehnert - MPhil - School of Architecture and Design
Why? Context Levels of Learning & Engagement
Presently humanity’s ecological footprint exceeds its regenerative
capacity by 30%. This global overshoot is growing and ecosystems are 1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
being run down as wastes (including greenhouse gases) accumulate in Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
the air, land, and water. Climate change, resource depletion, pollution, into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
loss of biodiversity, and other systemic environmental problems ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
threaten to destroy the natural support systems on which we depend.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
What? Systems, Networks, Values
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Problems cannot be understood in isolation but must be seen as
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
interconnected and interdependent. We must learn to engage with
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
complexity and think in terms of systems to address current
ecological, social and economic problems. Images can be useful
tools to help with this learning process. 3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
How? Transformational Learning Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
Stephen Sterling, 2009
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.
ECOLOGICAL
Actions
GOOD
DESIGN Ideas / Theories
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perce ption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
The world is a complex, interconnected, finite, ecological-social-
B: KNOWING (Conception) psychological-economic system. We treat it as if it were not, as
Ecological literacy - the understanding of the principles of organization A critical understanding of pattern, if it were divisible, separable, simple, and infinite. Our persistent,
that ecosystems have evolved to sustain the web of life - is the first consequence and connectivity intractable, global problems arise directly from this mismatch.
step on the road to sustainability. The second step is the move Donella Meadows, 1982
towards ecodesign. We need to apply our ecological knowledge to C: DOING (Actio n)
the fundamental redesign of our technologies and social institutions, The ability to design and act relationally,
so as to bridge the current gap between human design and the integratively and wisely. References
Fritjof Capra. The Hidden Connections. London: Flamingo. 2003
Stephen Sterling. Whole Systems Thinking as a Basis for Paradigm Change in Education. University of Bath. 2003
ecological sustainable systems of nature. Stephen Sterling. Transformational Learning. Researching Transformational Learning. University of Gloucestershire. 2009
Fritjof Capra, 2003 Stephen Sterling, 2009
j.j.boehnert@brighton.ac.uk | jody@eco-labs.org
This poster can be downloaded on this website: www.eco-labs.org

25. ECOLOGICAL
GOOD
DESIGN
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
Problems as symptoms of systemic failure,
rather than random errors requiring fixes.

28. Actions
Ideas / Theories
Norms / Assumptions
Beliefs / Values
Paradigm / Worldview
Metaphysics / Cosmology
Transformational Learning
Values, Knowledge, Skills
A: SEEING (Perc e ption )
An expanded ethical sensibility or consciousness
B: KNOWING (Conception)
A critical understanding of pattern,
consequence and connectivity
C: DOING (Actio n)
The ability to design and act relationally,
integratively and wisely.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

29. Ecological Literacy
shift from mechanistic metaphor and paradigm
towards an ecological metaphor and paradigm

30. Actions
Ideas/theories
Norms/assumptions
Beliefs/values
Paradigm/worldview
Metaphysics/cosmology
Stephen Sterling on transition from beliefs to actions: ‘Levels of Knowing’, 2009

31. How? Transformational Learning
The value / action gap permeates education for sustainability and is
obvious in environmental coverage in the media. The gap between
our ideas about what we value and what we are actually doing to
address the problem is the notorious value / action gap. This project
uses transformational learning to move from values to action. This
approach is integrated into cycles of action research and practice
based design work.

32. Levels of Learning & Engagement
1st: Education ABOUT Sustainability
Content and/or skills emphasis. Easily accommodated
into existing system. Learning ABOUT change.
ACCOMMODATIVE RESPONSE - maintenance.
2nd: Education FOR Sustainability
Additional values emphasis. Greening of institutions.
Deeper questioning and reform of purpose, policy and practice.
Learning FOR change. REFORMATIVE RESPONSE - adaptive.
3rd: SUSTAINABLE Education
Capacity building and action emphasis.
Experiential curriculum. Institutions as learning communities.
Learning AS change. TRANSFORMATIVE RESPONSE - enactment.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

33. Put simply, the case against the dominant Western
worldview is that it is no longer constitutes an adequate
model of reality - particularly ecological reality. The map
is wrong, and moreover, we commonly confuse the map
(worldview) for the territory (reality).
Sterling, 1993

34. An emerging ecological whole systems paradgim
70s - Meadows, Bateson
80s - Capra, Harman, Clark
90s - Orr, Laszlo, Hawkins, Kortean, Berman+
00s - Sterling, 100s+

35. An emerging ecological (relational/systemic) paradigm
presents a sane and hopeful evolutionary pathway,
necessary to the conditions we now face, with the power
to transcend the disintegrative effects of modernism
and the disempowering relativism of deconstructive
postmodernism.
Stephen Sterling, 2009

36. Seeing differently

39. We can’t solve problems by using the same
kind of thinking we used when we created them.
Albert Einstein

40. ECOLOGICAL
ECONOMIC SOCIAL
www.eco-labs.org
http://teach-in.ning.com