Being bird and sensory learning activities: Multimodal and arts-based pedagogies in the ‘Anthropocene’

Abstract

There is little room left for doubt or even debate at the severity of the ecological, indeed planetary crises that we find ourselves in during this period coined the Anthropocene. As educators working in the face of these crises, we have asked ourselves the question ‘how do we carry on?’ We reflect on a set of sensory, multimodal, meditative and arts-based pedagogical activities that bridge the geographical, biological, sociological and environmental dimensions of learning using the concepts from Hannah Arendt and John Dewey, in a higher-education context in Sweden. The first-cycle (undergraduate level) course in which these activities are conducted—Teaching sustainability from a global perspective - engages students in a range of pedagogical activities designed to encourage greater awareness of sustainability issues in diverse educational settings. In this paper we reflect on pedagogical practices as praxis in a sustainability focused course, and use the theory of practice architectures to question what people do in a particular time and place. We explore how educating for the future using multimodal and arts-based pedagogies could be a strategy to support new ways for reconfiguring environmental sustainability education in the Anthropocene.