ALT1: Engaging in Dialogue About CASD

The Purpose and Nature of ALT 1

Applied Learning Tasks (ALTs) run across both years of Leaving Certificate Climate Action and Sustainable Development. They are not isolated add-ons; instead, they serve as active lenses through which you explore the course's three core strands: Earth Systems, Life, and Environment; People, Power, and Place; and Global Connections.

In ALT 1, you collaborate in small groups to plan, lead, and reflect upon a structured conversation regarding a contemporary climate or sustainability issue. The format can take several shapes:

• A small-group classroom discussion exploring local environmental issues, such as river water quality or active travel infrastructure.
• A structured classroom conversation examining national policy dilemmas, such as agricultural emissions targets or the siting of renewable energy projects.
• An interview or question-and-answer session with an elected representative, such as a local county councillor or TD.
• A digital exchange with secondary students from another region or country experiencing different environmental and socioeconomic pressures.

A dialogue is fundamentally different from a competitive debate. An adversarial debate aims to defeat an opponent, defend a fixed stance, and sway an audience to declare a winner. In contrast, an inclusive dialogue aims for mutual understanding. Participants collaborate to uncover the values, experiences, and evidence beneath conflicting opinions, exploring common ground and shared solutions.

The Values-Attitudes-Dispositions Chain

The specification requires you to compare how people's values underpin their attitudes and dispositions. These three concepts are linked: values shape attitudes, and attitudes show up over time as dispositions. The influence also runs backwards—a direct personal experience can change an attitude, and a changed attitude can eventually reshape a value.

People rarely resist environmental measures simply because they lack scientific data; they evaluate proposals through their core values. For example, two people can review identical Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) emissions data showing agriculture's significant share of national greenhouse gas emissions, yet reach opposing conclusions:

• A dairy farmer whose values centre on family heritage and rural livelihood security holds an attitude of deep caution toward mandatory herd reductions, showing a disposition to lobby against statutory caps.
• An environmental campaigner whose values centre on ecological integrity and intergenerational climate justice holds an attitude of strong support for immediate caps, showing a disposition to organise public climate demonstrations.

Neither position is irrational. Both arise from coherent, deeply held values. In your exam answers and journal entries, you must also examine your own values, recognising how your personal background, geographical setting, and social assumptions influence your view of sustainability.

Values Relating to Nature Across Time and Between People

The specification requires you to discuss how values relating to nature vary across time and between different peoples and communities. You need precise terminology to describe these perspectives:

• Anthropocentric (human-centred) values: Nature is valued primarily for its utility in satisfying human needs and driving economic welfare. This is also called instrumental value (nature as fuel, timber, minerals, or agricultural soil).
• Ecocentric (nature-centred) values: Ecosystems and non-human species are recognised as possessing intrinsic value—an inherent worth and right to exist, function, and flourish regardless of human usefulness.
• Relational values: Nature matters through kinship, cultural identity, responsibility, and reciprocal attachment to a specific place or landscape.

Values Across Time: Irish Peatlands Across Three Eras

1. Traditional Era (Communal Turbary): Rural communities related to bogs primarily through relational and instrumental values. Peat cutting provided essential domestic fuel and energy independence, anchored by family harvesting traditions passed down through generations.
2. Mid-20th Century (Industrial Exploitation): State-led modernisation treated bogs strictly through an anthropocentric, instrumental lens. Peatlands were described at the time as unproductive 'wasteland' until drained and machine-harvested by Bord na Móna for national electricity generation and briquettes.
3. 21st Century (Ecological Restoration): Peatlands are increasingly recognised for ecocentric and climate values. Rewetted bogs serve as crucial long-term carbon sinks, biodiversity refuges, and natural flood attenuators.

This shift remains contested today. A turf-cutter holding registered turbary rights may see harvesting restrictions as a direct threat to cultural heritage, personal autonomy, and affordable domestic heating (relational and instrumental values). Meanwhile, an environmental hydrologist sees bog rewetting as vital for carbon sequestration, ecological stability, and halting biodiversity loss (ecocentric and climate values).

Values Between People: Diverse Worldviews and Legal Standing

Values also vary sharply between different societies today. Many indigenous and traditional value systems are fundamentally relational: a river or mountain is understood as an ancestor or kin to whom the community owes care and duty, rather than property to be exploited. In 2017, New Zealand legislated to recognise the Whanganui River as a legal person (Te Awa Tupua), appointing guardians to speak on its behalf. Ecuador's 2008 constitution similarly established enforceable legal rights for nature (Pachamama).

Contrast this with the property model prevalent in European and Western legal systems, where a river is classified as a resource belonging to landowners or the state, protected only through statutory usage regulations. Both models can achieve conservation, but they justify protection on fundamentally different premises: one through an inherent duty owed to nature, the other through rules imposed on human users. When evaluating indigenous perspectives, avoid treating indigenous peoples as a single, uniform group; traditions, governance systems, and environmental views vary widely across different communities.

External Influences: Advertising, Media, and Economic Ideologies

Personal values and attitudes do not develop in a vacuum. They are continuously influenced by external systems and messaging:

• Advertising and Consumer Culture: Commercial marketing frequently links self-worth, social acceptance, and convenience to material consumption, such as fast fashion or larger motor vehicles. This cultivates consumerist attitudes, creating resistance toward measures requiring resource conservation.
• Media Framing: News outlets and digital algorithms often frame environmental debates as stark binary clashes (such as 'jobs versus the environment' or 'rural Ireland versus urban greens'). Framing an issue solely around immediate costs while ignoring systemic climate risks deepens polarisation.
• Company Communications and Greenwashing: Corporate public relations frequently highlights minor eco-friendly steps—such as recyclable packaging—while concealing fossil-intensive core operations. This tactic is known as greenwashing. Having a commercial interest means a source requires scrutiny, but commercial involvement does not automatically make every technical claim false.
• Economic Ideologies: Prevailing economic orthodoxy assumes continuous Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth and resource extraction are necessary for prosperity. Alternative models, such as ecological economics and steady-state models, argue that economic activity must operate within physical planetary boundaries. The dominant economic ideology dictates what political institutions deem 'realistic' policy.

Planning an Inclusive Dialogue: A Six-Step Sequence

A dialogue succeeds or fails based on decisions made before anyone sits down. Learning outcome 3 requires you to plan and facilitate dialogue. Work through this six-step sequence to prepare thoroughly:

1. Choose and Narrow the Issue

Avoid broad, vague topics like 'climate change'. Pick a specific, local, and contested dilemma—such as 'Should our school car park reallocate spaces to build a secure bike shelter and EV charging hub?' A focused issue enables participants to draw on tangible, lived experiences.

2. Agree the Goal of the Dialogue

Clarify what success looks like. The glossary of action verbs defines facilitate as consciously guiding a dialogue so that it stays on course and reaches agreed-upon goals. Usually, the goal is building mutual understanding of why groups disagree, though it may include drafting an agreed community recommendation.

3. Research Perspectives in Advance

Identify all relevant stakeholders (such as local traders, elderly residents, secondary students, public health advocates, or bus operators). Consult at least one reliable source representing each viewpoint. You cannot facilitate balanced dialogue if you only understand the issue from one perspective.

4. Choose an Appropriate Format

Match the format to the participants. Options include small-group breakouts, a structured 'fishbowl' discussion, or a question-and-answer format with an invited official. If participants are unfamiliar with one another, large open floors can intimidate hesitant speakers; breakout tables allow quieter voices to contribute first.

5. Agree Ground Rules with the Group

Establish shared rules with participants before opening discussion. Key ground rules include: speak one at a time; challenge the claim, not the person; no acronym goes unexplained; listen actively without interrupting; and changing one's mind based on new evidence is encouraged.

6. Manage Practical Arrangements and Ethics

Confirm the room layout, ensure accessibility for all physical needs, set realistic time limits, and assign a timekeeper and note-taker. If you are inviting external guests, filming, or gathering feedback from participants, ensure you have obtained teacher and school consent in line with ethical and data protection guidelines.

Core Facilitation Skills and Testing Claims Inclusively

The specification names these facilitation skills: active listening, awareness of the behaviour of others, self-awareness, questioning, and managing conflict—and appends 'etc.', indicating an open, illustrative list. Facilitators also use summarising, reframing, timekeeping, and agreeing ground rules.

Testing a Claim Inclusively

Being inclusive does not mean accepting every assertion uncritically. The specification highlights that students must critically assess arguments and effectively challenge and test perspectives in an inclusive manner. Use this three-step routine:

1. Separate the claim from the person: Put the assertion on the table for collective evaluation rather than criticising the speaker. 'So the claim before us is that battery electric vehicles create higher total lifecycle emissions than modern diesel cars. Let us examine that claim together.'
2. Check the evidence for relevance, accuracy, and bias: Ask for the origin of the information. Check relevance (is the study current and applicable to Ireland's electricity grid?), accuracy (do independent scientific authorities corroborate the figures?), and bias (who funded the research, and what commercial or political stake do they hold?).
3. Distinguish facts, estimates, and value judgements: Clarify whether a statement is a verifiable fact ('Transport accounted for roughly 21% of Ireland's emissions in 2023'), a projection ('Banning cars will reduce shop turnover by 15%'), or a value judgement ('Preserving street parking is more important than building cycle tracks'). Naming which category a statement belongs to calms emotional debate.

Overcoming Barriers to Voice and Participation

A dialogue is only authentic if all participants can contribute without fear of marginalisation. Facilitators must proactively dismantle barriers to participation:

• Power Imbalances: Differences in age, socioeconomic status, or professional background can silence community members (for example, a teenager speaking alongside a county councillor). Mitigate this by establishing clear ground rules upfront, enforcing equal speaking time, and rotating reporting roles across small groups.
• Technical Jargon: Specialized terminology (such as kt CO₂ eq, grid capacity factors, or carbon pricing) alienates non-specialists. Facilitators should distribute a plain-English briefing sheet beforehand and enforce a strict ground rule: anyone using a technical term or acronym must define it in plain language.
• Reluctance in Large Groups: Fast-paced whole-room exchanges naturally favour confident, extroverted speakers. Use 'think-pair-share' sequences, small breakout tables, or silent written reflections on sticky notes to allow quieter participants to formulate ideas before sharing them.
• Emotional Overload and Climate Anxiety: Debates over climate disruption frequently evoke anxiety, anger, grief, guilt, or defensiveness. Under the specification's affective learning principles, emotional responses to environmental crises are entirely valid. An effective facilitator strikes a constructive balance between realism and optimism: validating participants' concerns without allowing the room to descend into despair or dismissive hostility.

Reflecting After the Dialogue

In the specification glossary, reflect means to consider an experience in order to correct or improve it—not merely reciting what occurred. Post-dialogue reflection consolidates your learning and directly prepares you for the Action Project journal, where reflection carries substantial marks.

Structure your reflection around four core inquiries:

• What surprised me? Which stakeholder perspective or lived reality did I misjudge or overlook before the dialogue?
• Where did my own values surface? Did I unconsciously show bias by encouraging speakers who confirmed my views or asking sharper follow-up questions to those I disagreed with? (This demonstrates self-awareness).
• What did I change my mind about, and why? Identify the exact empirical data or personal testimony that modified your initial stance.
• What would I alter in my facilitation practice next time? Identify a concrete tactical change—such as restructuring the opening round-robin or enforcing strict time limits on guest contributions.

Model Reflective Entry

'Prior to facilitating our community session on bus corridor redesign, I assumed that shopkeepers opposing the removal of kerbside loading bays were simply disregarding emissions targets. Listening to a local newsagent, I recognised that his stance was driven by an underlying value I share—livelihood security—applied over an immediate financial horizon. During the discussion, I caught myself nodding warmly at the sustainable transport advocates while holding the traders to a more rigorous standard of proof. That was an unexpected personal bias. If I facilitate again, I will draft one open-ended probe per stakeholder group in advance to guarantee transparent, balanced questioning.'

Two Meanings of 'Evaluate' and Higher Level Standards

To achieve high marks in Leaving Certificate Higher Level CASD, your work must demonstrate theoretical depth, critical evaluation, and the ability to apply frameworks to unfamiliar scenarios.

Two Distinct Glossary Meanings of 'Evaluate'

Appendix 1 of the specification provides two separate definitions for the action verb evaluate:

• Evaluate (data): Collect and examine data to make judgements and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a conclusion in an inquiry or investigation; identify the limitations of data in conclusions; and make judgements about ideas, solutions, or methods.
• Evaluate (ethical judgement): Collect and examine evidence to make judgements and appraisals; describe how evidence supports or does not support a judgement; identify the limitations of evidence in conclusions; and make judgements about ideas, solutions, or methods.

When an exam question instructs you to 'Evaluate the fairness of banning turf-cutting on designated raised bogs', you must present evidence on multiple sides of the dilemma, state an explicit appraisal, and point out what the empirical data cannot settle—for example, that greenhouse gas figures quantify carbon loss but cannot decide how to weigh family heating costs against planetary obligations.

Two Additional Action Verbs in Strand 4

• Examine: Consider an argument or concept in a way that uncovers the assumptions and relationships of the issue.
• Explore: Observe and study an issue in order to establish facts.

Raising Answers to Higher Level Standard

1. Use conceptual vocabulary rather than informal narrative: Instead of saying 'the local resident wanted to save money,' explain that 'the resident's position reflects instrumental and economic security values.'
2. Pair data with its limitations: Cite relevant metrics (such as EPA sectoral emission inventories in kt CO₂ eq), then note the boundary of that data—emissions metrics reveal which sectors emit most, but cannot dictate ethical burden-sharing.
3. Apply principles to novel contexts: When presented with an unseen stimulus—such as an offshore wind development dispute or a municipal low-emission zone—systematically map the stakeholder values, uncover systemic assumptions, and recommend concrete facilitation moves.

Assessment Connections: Written Paper and Action Project

ALT 1 is formatively assessed in class by your teacher, but the analytical models and facilitation practices you develop directly inform the two components of your Leaving Certificate grade:

The Written Examination (60%, 300 marks)

The Higher Level paper comprises Section A (60 marks), Section B (160 marks), and Section C (80 marks). The specification states that the written examination assesses learning across all four strands and the application of learning to authentic real-world issues. Expect stimulus-based scenario questions in Sections B and C requiring you to compare stakeholder values, detect bias or media framing, test claims, and design facilitation strategies to resolve community deadlocks. Practise with official SEC sample materials to become familiar with question formats.

The Action Project (40%, 200 marks)

You will complete an individual digital Action Project Journal based on an annual brief issued by the SEC. Completing the project involves an eight-stage process taking up to 20 hours overall, with the journal submitted to your teacher by Friday 12 March 2027. For the 2027 examination, the common brief topic is Reducing Ireland's Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

The 200 marks are allocated as follows:

• Section A: Research to inform action (30 marks)
• Section B: Planning for and taking action (70 marks)
• Section C: Reflection and evaluation (60 marks)
• Section D: References and bibliography
• Communication, innovation and coherence (40 marks): These marks are awarded for the overall quality of organisation, clarity of communication, and coherence across the entire journal, rather than being a separate section you write.

The facilitation and dialogue skills you practise in ALT 1 transfer directly to Stage 5 (action planning) as a method for consulting stakeholders, while your dialogue notes and self-evaluations provide authentic evidence for the 60-mark reflection component.

Key terms

Dialogue

A structured, collaborative conversation aimed at mutual understanding, exploring underlying values, and building solutions, rather than winning an argument.

Facilitate

To make an action or process easier; consciously guiding a dialogue so that it stays on course and reaches agreed-upon goals without imposing personal bias.

Value

A fundamental, enduring principle or belief that guides what an individual or society considers important, right, or desirable, underpinning attitudes and dispositions.

Attitude

A person's specific view, evaluation, or feeling towards a concrete issue, policy, or proposal, shaped by their underlying values.

Disposition

A person's habitual inclination or tendency to act or respond in a particular way over time.

Anthropocentrism

A human-centred worldview that considers human welfare, economic progress, and survival as the primary measure of value in nature.

Ecocentrism

A nature-centred worldview that recognises intrinsic value in all living organisms and ecological systems, regardless of their utility to humans.

Instrumental Value

The worth an entity has as a means to an end or because of its practical usefulness to human beings.

Intrinsic Value

The worth an entity possesses in and of itself, completely independent of its usefulness or value to humans.

Relational Values

Values arising from cultural identity, kinship, stewardship, and reciprocal connections between human communities and specific landscapes or ecosystems.

Active Listening

A communication method involving giving complete focus to a speaker, observing non-verbal cues, and paraphrasing their main points to verify understanding before responding.

Greenwashing

The practice of using misleading marketing, selective disclosure, or public relations to present an entity as environmentally friendly while obscuring harmful activities.

Inclusive Dialogue

A structured conversation that deliberately identifies and removes social, physical, technical, and psychological barriers so that all participants can contribute equally.