Fostering EfS Connections for Community Wellbeing: Working Meaningfully with What We’ve Got

Abstract

The Sustainable Development Goals compel universities to engage in locally relevant Education for Sustainability (EfS) partnerships with communities. In Tasmania, student researchers in education are engaging with schools to support sustainability collaborations in communities. This paper showcases a collaborative community platform that has enabled EfS projects to be co-delivered by the university and local community partners. We theorise the student researcher community interactions from two case studies and offer insights into the ways that student researchers employ cultural capital in efforts to build local momentum for EfS and enhance community wellbeing. The first case study explores a student researcher’s entanglements with a school’s cultural arts class which took its weekly rug-making sessions into the local community centre. Students taught others how to latch hook a rug, positioning students in a different light—as cultural producers and contributors to their community. The second case study investigates a student researcher led community engagement event, ‘Don’t Mess with Burnie’, which was designed to involve students in taking action to address marine litter. Activities included a beach clean-up, explorations of the water cycle, and found-object art. Through this event school students were empowered to make a difference to the local beach foreshore where they play. Through a discussion of student researcher cultural capital, this paper offers theoretical insights into the ‘living laboratory possibilities’ of university research and community collaborations more generally.