SCIENCE ON THE MARSH: TOWARDS THE GROUND OF EDUCATION (FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT)

This paper discusses sustainability research and education at the university level. The family of metaphors around science "at sea" is introduced and further developed in an attempt to reflect on education experience in the domain of sustainable development. The accounts of "normal" and "post-normal science" are introduced to elaborate on "science at sea", and then "science on the marsh". Drawing the implications of this discussion on education, a two-tier structure emerges: (1) the initiation into particular, disciplinary scientific communities, (2) learning to be a participant in formulating and dealing with social and environmental problems in a context of multiple authorities and multiple strategies for problem solving. Education, understood in this way, plays an intrinsic and instrumental role in sustainability science - it makes research sensitive to life-world problems and concerns, and it prepares researchers to effectively communicate their research outside the scientific community.