Big Thinking Podcast · Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Congress in Conversation - Part II with Kshamta Hunter

·25 min·1 clip

The model puts dialogue before discussion so every student can put ideas on the table without questions.

Congress in Conversation presents a special series from the Big Thinking Podcast in The Conversation Canada that brings Congress 2024 researchers into a public-facing conversation about shared responsibility to society, systems, and planet. Nihal Elhadi hosts Shamta Hunter, who serves as Manager of Transformative Learning and Student Engagement within the Sustainability Hub at the University of British Columbia. Hunter begins by explaining how a degree in cell biogenetics led her into teaching. She then describes several years spent teaching biology and science in K-12 classrooms. That experience left her thinking about the values that schools assume are being taught elsewhere. She says those conversations often go unspoken. Her return to graduate study opened the door to sustainability as a more explicit framework. From there, the conversation centers on how educators can make space for complex questions. Hunter argues that teachers do not need to be experts on everything in order to begin. What matters first is being clear about what they know and what they are still learning. She treats emotion, experience, and uncertainty as legitimate classroom material. Elhadi presses on the scale of the work. The episode acknowledges how difficult it is to teach subjects with no neat resolution. It also recognizes that environmental issues can bring in intersectional and other difficult social impacts. Hunter notes that K-12 and post-secondary educators are already under pressure to cover curriculum. She responds by framing sustainability education as both a problem and a solution within a larger system. In her view, the crisis is shaped by people with the most educated degrees, which makes education part of the answer as well. But the answer cannot be one sweeping change. It has to begin with smaller, workable shifts. She offers examples such as assignments, field trips, and guest speakers. Those options give educators a way to start even when they are not the subject expert. Her tone stays careful and explanatory rather than promotional. She suggests that more educators are recognizing the need to begin somewhere. The episode closes with a sense that the classroom can still be a place for honest, ongoing conversation about difficult social and environmental realities.

As heard by us

A patient case for teaching sustainability as a practice, not a slogan.

Congress in Conversation follows Shamta Hunter from cell biogenetics and K-12 biology and science teaching into transformative learning at UBC, using that path to frame sustainability as a values-driven practice rather than a fixed answer.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a calm, practical take on teaching sustainability, this one stays grounded.

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