Planting Hope: supporting the greener curriculum.

Abstract Major challenges in education for sustainable development and environmental education include finding teaching strategies that both demonstrate / foster good practice and that help reconnect learners with a natural world that lies outside their everyday experience. The ‘Connecting with Hope’ exercise involves participants in an end-of-term tree planting, conducted in the name of carbon mitigation. As part of the exercise, participants are asked to write their main hope for the future across three tree labels and attach these hopes to three trees that they have planted. Their wishes include the hopes that human actions will not destroy our world and that humans should treat their fellows with greater consideration and respect. When asked to reflect upon the reasons behind the exercise, the majority recognise that this includes helping them repay their debts to the environment and accept their personal responsibility for sustainability.