Session 37

L6 Teaching Spatial Methods and Urban Sustainability in Different Contexts

Aiming for long-term sustainable development of our cities and rural areas, means – among other things – that the next generation of students in particular needs commitment, knowledge, and methodological tools. Thus, in our teaching courses we do not only have to discuss various aspects of sustainability and how to achieve them but also methodological issues. However, in teaching courses on sustainability methodological problems, challenges, and tools are dealt with much less frequently – at least in disciplines outside the social sciences in a narrow sense. At the same time, more and more teaching concepts have been developed in recent years, which are also used to convey and research sustainability-related questions, such as controversy mapping. In addition, work on urban sustainability issues is increasingly taking place in transdisciplinary research projects, together with local communities, in the context of Citizen Science, or even with entrepreneurial ambitions. In such settings, there is often a triple methodological challenge: (1) researchers need intensive skills in (spatial) methods for researching urban sustainability but at the same time (2) also skills in activating and educating a wide range of people, next to students also inhabitants, local stakeholders, or children. (3) Sustainable urban development is in most cases controversial in its implementation and at the same time students and teaching stuff take sustainability for granted as a common goal. Thus, the session pursues a very broad understanding of teaching and wants to discuss experiences, challenges but also uncertainties in an international context. Potential contributions may present (but are not limited to): (1) Teaching experiences, concepts, and class syllabus for researching urban sustainability in typical spatial and social sciences such as urban planning, anthropology, geography, or sociology; (2) Teaching spatial methods in interdisciplinary courses, or in applied a-typical contexts, such as social work, engineering, or management; (3) Methodological experiences and challenges in citizen sciences projects or community work on urban sustainability; (4) Teaching concepts for dealing with contradictory ideas of goals, ways and implementation of sustainable urban development; (5) Digital teaching strategies to strengthen methodological knowledge for a better understanding of urban sustainability.