Chapter 5: Eco-Activism and Greening the Social Professions Curriculum: Teaching and Learning Ecosocial Work in an Irish University

The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 refers to the need to educate populations about climate change. This can be achieved by training novice and frontline workers in the social and helping professions in the causes and effects of climate change and how human and natural ecologies are fundamentally entwined. This chapter discusses the origins, delivery, and outcomes of two new ecosocial work modules introduced to the Master of Social Work and BSocSc (Youth and Community Work) qualifying degree programs in University College Cork in recent  years. The chapter argues for a fundamental shift toward a critical and activist pedagogy that counters the anthropocentric focus of the social professions, challenges neoliberal hegemony, and focuses on principles of ecological social justice.