My work on Teaching for Sustainability

A couple of years ago, I decided that I would only initiate new projects that, in one way or another, contribute to making the world a better place. That has lead to my focus on Teaching for Sustainability. My understanding of Teaching for Sustainability is very wide — it includes both my research interest around relationships in a teaching and learning context, and several academic development activities directly on Teaching for Sustainability. Some examples:

• I am co-leading the initiative “Teaching for Sustainability” (TfS) at Lund University (together with Terese Thoni). The goal of the initiative TfS is to support and connect teachers, and for that we are fostering a Community of Practice with different circles of involvement (we describe the process in detail in Glessmer et al. (2025)) and frequent events, like for example a group where teachers try serious games on each other, or “Transformation Thursday” lunches as opportunities to meet with other teachers and talk about teaching for sustainability. Sometimes those lunches are themed (for example on using poetry in teaching for sustainability). Blog posts about the initiative on this blog are tagged iTfS, and we also run the blog “Teaching Sustainability” with a lot more information about the initiative.
• I have developed and run a course for teachers at LTH on “Teaching for Sustainability” in various formats since 2022, first fully in person, and most recently online in cooperation with Robert Kordts at the University of Bergen. This is a project-based course that counts for 2 weeks of full-time pedagogical training, where participants work in small groups on projects that are relevant for their own practice, and present to their peers from outside the course. It is great to see how this course has developed over the years, and how former participants are continuously building on the projects that started out in the course! Blog posts about the online version of this course are tagged TfSLTHUiB.
• We are currently producing a MOOC on “Teaching about, with, in, through, for Sustainability” (funded by
  Lund University’s EduLab node, and the national education initiative Korta kurser för yrkesverksamma med inriktning på grön omställning, batterier och teknik). The main motivation to apply for funding for this MOOC was to be able to flip the “Teaching for Sustainability” course and thereby free up instructor time for engagement with participants. But based on interviews and survey data, we see that there is a need for low-threshold materials for teachers that are just starting out on their journey in teaching for sustainability, so I am actually very excited to create the MOOC to address that need! Blog posts about the MOOC are tagged TawitfSMOOC.

And as always, I am summarizing a lot of the literature that I read. All relating teaching for sustainability is tagged “Teaching Sustainability”.

I am writing this on January 1st, 2026, because I have launched my pretty new website a whole year ago, and until now, I just linked to tagged posts from the landing page, not to some kind of overview over the topic. So now at least there is a bit more context to link to… And also it is nice to start the new year thinking about what matters to me, both personally and professionally, and on this topic there is definitely a very big overlap between the two! But please note that this is my personal blog and that all I am sharing here, even when writing about projects that I do as part of my work, are my personal opinions.

Glessmer, M. S., Curtis, S., Thoni, T. (2025). Two years of the initiative Teaching for Sustainability at Lund University – understanding challenges and exploring opportunities. In: Connecting Teachers – Changing from Within. Proceedings from the 2024 Lund University Conference on Teaching and Learning. Editors: Johanna Bergqvist Rydén and Marita Ljungqvist. Lund University. ISBN: 978-91-90055-50-2; DOI: https://doi.org/10.37852/oblu.343.c766

Access the whole book online here: https://books.lub.lu.se/catalog/view/343/521/2123;

Featured image is Boalt quarry the day of the annual “Christmas dive” with my diving club, Active Divers. It was about as cold as it looks!