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Eva Österlind on teaching sustainability using interactive drama workshops

At this week's lunch talk at SF Lab, a visiting professor in applied drama shared how drama can be used to avoid defensive responses like denial or hopelessness.

Published onFeb 22, 2022
Eva Österlind on teaching sustainability using interactive drama workshops
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Me and Leif Dahlberg attended a two-day course on ”Drama-based methods for sustainability teaching” last autumn. We very much enjoyed the course so I invited one of the teachers, Dr. Eva Österlind, Professor in Applied Drama, Department of Teaching and Learning, Stockholm University, to come and talk to us about her work. Read a short summary of Eva and her talk below.

Teaching for Sustainability in Higher Education - Interactive Drama Workshops

An overarching purpose for all teaching is to promote connections between the content and each individual student. When it comes to climate change, it is a challenging topic for both teachers and students, due to the magnitude of the problem and the existential threat. In order to avoid defensive responses like denial or hopelessness, Drama for Learning looks promising.

About Eva: I teach Drama in Teacher Education, lead a Master program in Drama and Applied Theatre, and tutor PhD-students.  My research focus on the potential of Drama for Learning, especially Drama in Education for Sustainable Development in HE 

Suggested readings

-Österlind, E. 2018. Drama in higher education for sustainability: work-based learning through fiction? Higher Education, Skills and Work-Based Learning8(3), pp. 337–352.

Lehtonen, A., Österlind, E., &Viirret, T.L. 2020. Drama in education for sustainability: Becoming connected through embodiment.  International Journal of Education & the Arts, 21(19). http://www.ijea.org/v21n19/