“Education for Sustainable Development Curriculum Design Toolkit” by Higgins & Calvert (2025)

I found another “head, hands, heart” model! This time, Calvert et al. (2022) use it as a frame to organise the key competencies for sustainability:

• Engaging the head, i.e. the cognitive domain is about ways of thinking: Critical & systems thinking as well as future thinking competency, which are needed to better undestand challenges related to sustainablity
• Engaging the heart, i.e. the socio-emotional domain is about ways of being: normative and self-awareness competency, which are necessary to work with others and manage yourself
• Engaging the hands, i.e. the behavioral domain is about ways of doing: strategic, collaboration and problem solving competence, which are how thoughts can become actions

I find this an interesting variation on the theme of head-hands-heart models that I discussed previously (Sipos et al. 2008 and Öhman & Sund 2021), where the focus was on the space where the three overlap, and on what activities we might do in that space to lead to transformational learning. Here, it frames the key competencies in a different way than in the original and slightly complicated graphic, which I also find helpful to see them in a new light and point out that even all of them are competencies, they are not all “only” about cognitive approaches to a problem.

Although not explicitly linked to, it appears that they used this ESD Toolkit Planner in a co-creation bootcamp to redesign a module to include ESD. And it seems that a similar structure is published in Higgins & Calvert (2025)’s “Education for Sustainable Development Curriculum Design Toolkit“, with templates for a stakeholder analysis, mapping of an existing course, module & active learning planning (with SDG and competency cards to cut out and place on the fishbone map for a quick visual overview) and an action plan. This looks like a fairly straightforward tool!

It reminds me of the  “you have a part to play” toolkit (read my summary of that here), and I think a merged version of the two would be optimal: The very simple, steamlined structure of Higgins & Calvert (2025), combined with the more elaborate SDG cards (that already contain suggestions for links with they key competencies!) and very strong focus on conversations of “you have a part to play”. But either of those would be a good starting point when thinking about redesigning curriculum!

Calvert, A., Higgins, K., Thompson, A., & Galvin, T. (2022). (Re)designing a module to embed Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Reflections, (33), 14-20.

Higgins, K., & Calvert, A. (2025). AdvanceHE Education for Sustainable Development Curriculum Design Toolkit. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/education-sustainable-development-curriculum-design-toolkit