Design is ubiquitous, shaping every aspect of human life, yet within school curricula it remains misunderstood and undervalued. This paper argues for a reframing of design’s place within the ecology of Art & Design education, where behaviours, pedagogies, and policy intersect with systemic challenges of funding, expertise, and technological disruption. At a time when natural and social systems face unprecedented peril, design education holds critical potential to address climate justice, civic equity, and sustainable futures. Despite the UK Design Council reporting that 1 in 20 work in the design economy, skill shortages persist in circular and lowcarbon design, while GCSE enrolments in Design & Technology and Art & Design continue to decline. Paradoxically, higher education offers a proliferation of sustainability-focused design courses, and many of those students increasingly choose to apply human-centred design to improve lives. This paper explores how these tensions shape the ecology of design education, where art and technology converge in applied practice. It asks: how can we teach the human skills necessary to navigate generative AI and other posthuman technologies while sustaining disciplinary traditions? By adopting ecological thinking, the paper proposes inclusive, adaptive models for art in design education that respond to planetary and societal urgencies.