Meeting the Challenges of Existential Threats through Educational Innovation A Proposal for an Expanded Curriculum

Meeting the Challenges of Existential Threats through Educational Innovation is the first book of its kind to provide an educational and systematic analysis of problems and solutions regarding the most pressing threats that humankind is facing. The book makes a case for the importance of education responding to significant threats; including climate change, pandemics, decline in global biodiversity, overpopulation, egoism, ideologies, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare, inequality, artificial intelligence, and ignorance and the distortion of truth. Written by leading experts in their field based on cutting-edge research, the chapters explore these issues and offer suggestions for how education can address these problems in the future. This groundbreaking and highly topical book will be an essential reading for academics, researchers and post-graduate students in the fields of education research, environmental studies, educational politics and organizational management.

Foreword Nils Chr. Stenseth 1. Basic Constructs in the Science of Sustainability Education Herner Saeverot and Glenn-Egil Torgersen 2. SSE-Based Frame of Reference. Outlines for a Global Curriculum: Turning Existential Threats into Resources Herner Saeverot and Glenn-Egil Torgersen 3. Climate change. Foundations for a Transformative Learning Agenda Jennifer Joy West, Helene Amundsen, Nathalie Schaller and Marianne Aasen 4. Biodiversity. The Decline in Global Biodiversity and How Education Can be Part of the Solution Louise McRae and Monika Böhm 5. Overpopulation: A Century of Debate that Deserves Re-Examination Colin Butler 6. Infectious Disease, Pandemics, and Education. From Miasms to Covid-19 Jörn Klein 7. Infectious Disease Threats—Antibiotic Resistance, Covid-19 and Future Pandemics Birgitte Freiesleben de Blasio 8. Holding Oneself in the World: Is there a Need for Good Egoism? Gert Biesta 9. Inequality: Education, Opportunity and Existential Threat Ron Thompson 10. Ideologies, Threats and Sustainability. How can Education and Knowledge of the Unforeseen Help Reduce the Threat Posed by Ideologies? Herner Saeverot and Glenn-Egil Torgersen 11. Understanding the Threat of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare Halvor Kippe, Stig Rune Sellevåg and Per Leines Lausund 12. Artificial Intelligence: Is the Power Matched with Responsibility? Marija Slavkovik 13. Ignorance and Truth Tomasz Szkudlarek Afterword Herner Saeverot

Herner Saeverot is Professor of Education at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences in Bergen, and Professor II at NLA University College in Oslo, Norway.