General discussion

"What are we talking about?" - A plea for consistent definitions

While doing research for my term project on education for sustainable development it was often mentioned in the papers that we first have to be specific of what we are talking about. To many different terms exist for the same phenomenon or task which makes it difficult to communicate within the people already involved in sustainability. Teaching what sustainability is about, how kids, students, or individuals can get involved in sustainable development rely even more deeply on defined terms and definitions.

This problem might seem trivial compared to the already raised questions but I think that it would enable not only researchers but also the public to better understand and make further progress, but also to get involved more easily. This is also not a kind of NSF grant project, but it might be worth having a student working on a kind of glossary. The major problem would be to spread the word and to get people to use it. But it might be a start to create it, to use it among the major academics in that field and perhaps to get it published in context with the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.