South Africa
The Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC) at Rhodes University hosts Africa’s largest research and postgraduate programme in environmental education and learning. It has an established research Chair. The core of its research programme is on transformative learning, agency and social change. The ELRC is linked to various international, regional and Africa-wide environmental education, ESD, and university environmental networks. In this proposal, the ELRC is also collaborating with IPCC scientist and Chair of Global Change from the University of Witwatersrand (Professor Colleen Vogel), and Durban University of Technology’s Urban Futures Centre, the WESSA (largest national environmental NGO) and Activate!, an innovative youth leadership programme as well as the Water Research Commission. Professor Lotz-Sisitka (lead researcher) has a PhD used participatory approaches to EE/ESD.
Main roles and responsibilities: TKN and programme leadership and management, methodological and theoretical leadership, case study development, research school development, T-learning LAB development and co-ordination.
Main roles and responsibilities: TKN and programme leadership and management, methodological and theoretical leadership, case study development, research school development, T-learning LAB development and co-ordination.
Prof Lotz-Sisitka has been engaged in environmental education and learning research for over 23 years. She has led numerous national and international research and development programmes that have expanded local, national and international system changes towards sustainability focussing on the role of education and learning in sustainability transformations. She has supervised over 70 postgraduate scholars from Africa in this area. She has published over 80 peer reviewed papers and produced over 20 national and international research reports.
Prof Lotz-Sisitka has served on over 20 national and international scientific and policy advisory committees including the international reference group for the UN Decade of ESD (2004-2014). She has offered 45 keynote presentations in 33 countries around the world. Her research interests are education for sustainable development; critical, generative research methodology; and transformative learning and human agency. |
Prof. Rob O'Donoghue has long been concerned with how environmental learning and change practices are linked to living conditions – particularly for those living in conditions of poverty and environmental degradation. His professional history ranges from teaching primary school to working as the Director of Environmental Education for KZN Wildlife for 20 years. At present, Rob’s main role is to oversee the research of Masters and PhD students at the ELRC, and to try to integrate book-based learning about practice with actual practices about change. Exploring sustainable technologies and alternative practices is both his professional interest and his passion.
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Professor Coleeen Vogel is a Chair in WITS University's Global Change and Sustainability Research Institute. Her research focuses on climate change, climate vulnerability and adaptation to climate, with a particular focus on disaster-risk reduction and climate variability in southern Africa. She has an impressive list of publications on diverse aspects of climate variability and change, and global environmental change in general.
Coleen is committed to promoting interdisciplinary perspectives on global environmental change. She chaired the International Scientific Committee of the International Human Dimensions Programme and was previously Vice-Chair of the Land Use and Land Cover Change Programme (a joint international science programme of the IGBP and IHDP). She was a co-ordinating author for the Africa Chapter in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, and part of the final overall synthesis process and the Summary for Policy Makers. She was a key contributor to the South African Green and White Papers on Disaster Management and a major contributing author for the recent Disaster Management Act (2002). She was also awarded the Burtoni Award for excellence in climate change adaptation research and climate change advocacy in 2010. |
Prof. Sheona Shackleton's research and academic interests are broad with most of her work in the past 30 years being at the interface between rural livelihoods and natural resource management. She has have undertaken research in such wide ranging areas as community conservation, natural resource governance, rural livelihoods and vulnerability, ecosystem services and human-well-being, non-timber forest product use and commercialisation, and climate change adaptation. She enjoys working in interdisciplinary teams, and has participated in several large international and inter-institutional research programmes, most of these culminating in several books as well as multiple journal papers. Her work is focussed at the nexus between environment/ecosystem services, people, change and sustainability, and she believes that the global environmental challenges we are encountering today can only be addressed through integrated, inter- and transdisciplinarity research approaches.
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Dylan is an independent researcher, and post-doctoral scholar at the Durban University of Technology's Centre for Urban Futures. He has a trans-disciplinary PhD in Environmental Education from Rhodes University. Dylan's has been involved in sustainable rural development and social environmental learning. His artwork and creative practice is particularly focused on empathy, and primarily he works with imagination, listening and empathy as actual sculptural materials. His recent PhD explored the role of social learning in the response to climate change in South Africa, and has worked in collaboration with the Social Sculpture Research Unit to further develop the social sculpture practice - Earth Forum. Recently Dylan completed a 44 day journey across South Africa, visiting 17 different towns on the Climate Train. His MSc research explored the role biodiversity played in the wellbeing of rural-children's lives affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa. Dylanis also the educational advisor for Earth Junkies, an organization enriching children’s capacities to engage with the natural world and develop ecological literacy.
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Tichaona Pesanayi grew up in rural Zimbabwe before gaining exposure to urban environments, the surrounding countries and other continents. He is concerned with people and their livelihoods, and hence his research focuses on transformative social learning for adaptive change. Tichaona’s has a background in Environmental Education and training in natural science, and currently works for the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. This work has exposed him to the rich cultural diversity of South Africa, the struggles of its people and the environmental and sustainability concerns of the region. In order to better understand his regional environmental work and its relationship to the global scheme, Tichaona is doing a PhD focussing on social learning across boundaries within water, seed security and natural resource management activity systems.
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Priya Vallabh is a lecturer and PhD scholar in the Environmental Learning Research Centre, within the CATHSSETA research group. Her research interest is around participation in Online Learning and social action-taking. Her PhD study examines the epistemic cultures of a variety of science skills development partners and institutional contexts in South Africa, and citizen science as an approach to scientific engagement and skills development, with an eye to informing an integrated science skills pathway that adopts an online citizen science approach to learning. She has worked in a range of environmental learning and research contexts, ranging from conservation education to youth development and school support. She holds a first masters degree in Environmental Education from Rhodes University, South Africa and a second in Online and Distance Education from Open University, UK.
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Experencia Chisoni is a full- time PhD Scholar with the Environmental Learning Research Centre at Rhodes University. Her research interest is in uptake of Improved Cook Stove (ICS) innovation and Community Learning. Her study is within Climate Change adaptation (under Capacity Building for Managing Climate Change in Malawi) through utilization of Energy Efficient Technologies. Specifically, she would like to investigate the learning that takes place in communities on ICS innovation and how socio-cultural factors inhibit/facilitate the uptake of the innovation, among other things. She hopes to understand how social learning can facilitate and accelerate the adoption of the ICS technology. She is a lecturer at the University of Malawi, and holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Malawi.
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Injairu Kulundu is combining arts with social justice and environmental activism in her work with young adults. She holds a BA in Politics and Drama, Applied Theatre (Hons), Post grad Diploma in African Diplomacy and Peace Keeping, and an MA in Political Studies (Rhodes University), and is currently completing a PhD in Transgressive Learning and Youth Activism.
Injairu is a project leader and Change Driver at ACTIVATE!. ACTIVATE! is a network of young leaders equipped to drive change for the public good across South Africa. Connecting youth who have the skills, sense of self and spark to address tough challenges and initiate innovative and creative solutions that can reshape our society - See more at: http://www.activateleadership.co.za/#sthash.hmdUCpN7.dpuf |
Kim Weaver is a masters student at Rhodes University. She is part of a research team developing the Amanzi for Food Learning Network. The focus of her research is on social learning and communications in multi-actor learning networks. She has a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in Conservation Ecology from the University of Stellenbosch.
Project website: http://amanziforfood.co.za |
Dr Christopher Mabeza is a post-doctoral scholar at Rhodes University. He completed his PhD in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. At an environmental organization in Harare, Zimbabwe, he spearheaded environmental education around the country. He has published on adaptation to climate by smallholder farmers in rural Zimbabwe and is researching water harvesting techniques in semi-arid southern Zimbabwe.
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Dr Jim Taylor is the Director of Environmental Education at WESSA. Jim has worked for WESSA for 30 years in the broad field of environmental education, social change processes and monitoring and evaluation. He has been directly involved in the establishment of a number of national and international initiatives including Eco-Schools in South Africa and the SADC Regional Environmental Education Programme. Jim is a founder member and Past President of the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa (EEASA). He is also the recipient of a Human Rights award.
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