Learning with Place: Sustainable Futures

Place-based pedagogies recognise that the ‘where’ of learning is critical to what is learned. This subject explores places of learning through experiential education on sustainability in the urban environment of Naarm/Melbourne. The subject occurs off site in and through the city, engaging walking and other forms of experience to understand urban places as sites of sustainability learning, and places of public pedagogy. Using the guiding questions of ‘what happened here?’ ‘what is happening here?’, and ‘what could happen here?’; it explores the history, present, and future of Naarm/Melbourne. For example, engaging with Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung cultural sites and key locations in the settlement of Naarm, the subject engages issues of Country and settler colonialism in specific places. It will include critical disabilities, racial justice, and trans and queer work on public spaces to ask ‘who belongs’ in a ‘sustainable city’ now and in the future. Learning on climate and sustainability issues manifesting in Melbourne and community and government initiatives to address these, the subject will address what kinds of different futures might be possible or desirable. Through experiences with a range of suburbs, community organisations, Elders, activists, and public spaces, parklands, students will both engage in critical learning themselves, and gain better understanding of how to facilitate place-based experiences for others to further sustainability learning and action.