Agency refers to the capacity of an individual or a group to make intentional decisions and take actions to achieve specific goals or bring about change. It encompasses self-determination, initiative, and the sense of having influence over one’s circumstances or environment.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of living species on Earth, including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi. Human activities such as pollution, climate change, and population growth which disturb and even destroy ecosystems, thereby posing a threat to Earth’s biodiversity.

Ecopedagogy represents the confluence of multiple and transdisciplinary educational traditions and methods and aims to: 

(i) promote affection, care, and respect for the natural and animal world through facilitating direct and sensorial experiences with place and engaging with fiction and art;

(ii) build upon students’ local knowledge and values and acknowledge culturally diverse forms of knowledge, socio-environmental perspectives, and ways of being; 

(ii) foster the affective, social, aesthetic, and ethical dimensions of the human being, necessary for developing environmental just societies, through creative, arts-based, and collaborative practices;

(iv) reveal the connections between human acts of environmental harm and social injustices (socio-environmental connections) and how they limit the possibilities for human and non-human others through critical frameworks;

(v) promote social, ecological, and climate justice through imaginative practices and collective action.

These methods include place-based and slow pedagogy, outdoor education, ecojustice, critical pedagogy, and arts-based education.

Ecosystems refers to a geographic area where plants, animals, and other organisms, as well as weather and landscapes, work together to form a bubble of life. Within these systems, every factor depends on every other factor. For example, a change in temperature might affect plant growth which animals will have to adapt to. Human activity often poses a threat to a number of ecosystems (e.g., deforestation of rainforests, destruction of coral reefs).

Environmental Awareness is concerned with the understanding and consciousness of environmental issues and their connections to human activities. In addition, environmental awareness “involves the realizations that humans and ecosystems co-exist in a shared environment”.

Environmental Conservation is the act of protecting Earth’s natural resources (e.g., air, minerals, plants, soil, water, wildlife) for current and future generations. The goal is to maintain diversity of species, genes, and ecosystems, as well as functions of the environment through sustainable use of nature by humans.

Environmental Education involves the exploration of environmental issues, the engagement in problem solving, and the participation in actions to improve the environment. Thus, environmental education encompasses awareness and sensitivity, knowledge and understanding, attitudes, skills, as well as participation concerning the environment and environmental changes.

Environmental Justice refers to “the goal of promoting justice and accountability in environmental matters, focusing on the respect, protection and fulfilment of environmental rights, and the promotion of the environmental rule of law.” However, from an activist viewpoint, it can also be seen as “a social movement to further policy and cultural changes that support social justice and environmentalism, broadly defined, connecting issues of race, class, indigeneity, gender, citizenship/nation state, and sexuality with environmental equity”. In general, “most visions of environmental justice focus on power and powerlessness”, because environmental injustice is often enacted through pre-existing inequalities and uneven power relations. It is also closely linked to climate justice, defined as “a global movement for justice in addressing the historical dimensions, current policies (or lack of) regarding sea-level rise, ocean acidification, increasing intensities related to drought and wildfires, etc., and future implications of massive carbon emissions and their interrelated impacts on ecological systems and human communities”.

CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is a methodology which entails the learning and teaching of the subject-matter with and through the foreign language. From a pedagogical perspective, students are engaged in a variety of activities that aim at scaffolding their understanding of content, supporting their cognitive and communicative skills in the target language, and developing their intercultural understanding and global citizenship. When applied to the understanding of environmental issues and the promotion of environmental justice and climate action, CLIL can help balance the cognitive and linguistic load, equip students with the necessary tools to communicate in the target language across different genres and in a variety of modes, and promote an awareness of cultural differences and perspectives.

Climate Action “refers to efforts taken to combat climate change and its impacts. These efforts involve reducing greenhouse gas emissions (climate mitigation) and/or taking action to prepare for and adjust to both the current effects of climate change and the predicted impacts in the future (climate adaptation).” Forcing governments, companies and industries to undertake climate action is often the objective of climate activism.

Critical Literacy Skills refers to the skill to “tease out various agendas, purposes, and interests represented in texts” . Critical literacy skills enable interpretations of different (type of) texts through a critical lens.

Language of “Commons” denotes an orientation which sees English as a language used to support conviviality in opposition to the dominant metaphor of “language as a resource” to be exploited. A “language as commons” orientation entails a respect for limits in the spread of English, the need to allow the language to be taught and learned as a convivial tool, and the need to integrate multilingual practices (see “multilingual approaches to education” in the glossary) into how language is taught and learned. Far from prescribing recipes, a “languages as commons” orientation wants to encourage conversations and critical reflections around the role of the English language and of the English teacher within an economic system that is built to generate unlimited growth and consumption sometimes irrespective of local languages/varieties and histories.

Marginalized Communities are groups of people who experience systemic exclusion, disadvantage, or discrimination within a society, often due to factors such as their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, disability, religion, or other characteristics. This marginalization can result in limited access to resources, opportunities, and decision-making processes, leaving these communities socially, economically, or politically disenfranchised. Marginalized communities often face barriers to education, healthcare, employment, housing, and participation in civic life, reinforcing cycles of inequality and reducing their ability to fully engage in and benefit from societal structures.

Marginalized Voices “represent groups that have self-contained cultural norms and rules that differ from mainstream norms and rules”. While there may be shared norms, rules, and values between marginalized groups and mainstream culture, their differences can be considered transgressive.

Multilingual Approaches to Education recognise multilingualism as the norm and give equal values to all the languages and cultures present in the classroom. Students are encouraged to strategically use their full linguistic and cultural repertoire with the aim of supporting the learning of content (cognitive) and of the target language (linguistic), drawing connections between their different languages (metalinguistic), and contributing to their personal growth and empowerment as active citizens (affective). The presence of multilingual approaches in the competency framework aims at making visible the parallels between ecology and multilingualism:

(i) language loss and extinction is linked to loss of ecosystems thus the need to respect and promote all languages;

(ii) English should be viewed as a language of commons and as part of a wider repertoire that also includes other languages;

(iii) the field of English teaching has long witnessed a call to “decolonise” its practices through recognising and valuing students’ linguistic and cultural resources that also bring with them different ways of knowing and experiencing the world;

(iv) using multilingual practices and strategies in the English language classroom means opening a space for creative experimentation with language and identity.

Sustainability is the practice of using natural resources (e.g. forests, freshwater precious metals, fossil fuels) responsibly, so both present and future generations have access to these resources.

Systems Thinking means to approach a sustainability problem from all sides; to consider time, space and context in order to understand how elements interact within and between systems. Within the context of environmental education, systems thinking can refer to “identifying the various biophysical and social components in a given environmental context and distinguishing their interrelations, allowing or the construction of a ‘‘big picture’’ view”.  This is crucial in understanding phenomena like climate change: “the ecologically literate individual has a clear perception and understanding of a system’s dynamics and ruptures, as well as its past and alternate future trajectories. He or she understands the complexity of studied objects and phenomena, allowing for more enlightened decision-making.”

United Nations SDGs refer to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals which were adopted by the United Nations in 2015 as an urgent call for action. They entail the end of poverty and hunger, the promotion of good health and well-being, as well as the equality in education and gender. In addition, access to clean water, sanitation, energy, and work shall be granted to all. Other goals also discuss industry, innovations, infrastructures, inequalities, sustainable cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, aquatic and terrestrial life, peace and justice, as well as partnership.