T-learning for geosciences education: proposal for a sustainable pedagogy

Andrea Gerbaudo¹ & Marco Davide Tonon^1
1Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Torino.
Corresponding author e-mail: andrea.gerbaudo@unito.it

In the last years there has been a growing awareness that Earth Sciences provide essential knowledge for a sustainable future; on the other hand, however, the educational offerings of Earth Science departments are still poorly oriented toward ecological challenges. How, then, to ensure that departments develop educational strategies suited to this end? In this short note, we point out the T-Learning methodologies (where “T” stands for transformative, transgressive and transdisciplinary) as valuable tools to connect science education with the broader concept of Education for Sustainability. As a case study, we describe a workshop entitled Walking Pianalto, that was held in May 2022 as part of an Earth Science didactics course for future teachers. The results of a survey conducted among the participants confirm the effectiveness of this workshop in terms of improving participants’ perception of their relationship with nature and addressing educational strategies towards sustainability.

geoscience education, education for sustainability, transformative learning, transdisciplinary, T-learning.