Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge and Place-Based Learning for Sustainability

Long-standing cultural practices, ecological understanding, and community relationships with the land have great value for sustainable practices and education. Indigenous knowledge systems offer insights into sustainable resource management, biodiversity conservation, and climate adaptation. When combined with place-based learning, these perspectives foster deeper environmental stewardship and context-specific solutions to sustainability challenges. Integrating Indigenous perspectives with contemporary research and policy can support more inclusive, resilient, and ethically grounded approaches to managing natural resources and addressing global environmental change. Harnessing Indigenous Knowledge and Place-Based Learning for Sustainability explores the intersection of indigenous perspectives and education for sustainable development. It examines the challenges and opportunities in advancing transformative education that fosters systems thinking, critical reflection, and social action in response to urgent global challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. This book covers topics such as school facilities, social justice, and educational policy and reform, and is a useful resource for educators, sociologists, academicians, researchers, and scientists.

Amad Gablan is a professor of science education at the College of Education at UAEU. He earned his Ph.D. degree in science and sustainability education from Florida State University, the USA in 2005 and worked for more than 15 years at the College of Educational Science at the Hashemite University in Jordan and 6 years as a senior programs' manager at Queen Rania Teacher Academy, Jordan. He also worked as a visiting professor of science education at the University of Alberta, Canada for 5 years. He conducted several research projects in education with UNESCO, UNICEF, EU, and USAID. He has published more than 88 books, chapters in books, and journal articles in local and international publishing houses.