Resources & Tools

• Resources & Tools Intro
• Facilities & Operations
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• Education

• Sustainability Education: Students & Teachers
• Sustainability Education for Staff
• General

Education

Everybody involved with the school system needs to understand the concepts of sustainability. That will allow everyone to work together toward a sustainable vision.

 

Education for Sustainability can be described as having 4 major thrusts, as first articulated by the United Nations in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21. The first and second of these relate especially to the education that the school system provides to our students. The school system is in a position to help everybody with the third. And the 4th applies to school employees.

1. Access to quality basic education.
   • Access to and quality of a primary education is a major global issue.
   • Worldwide, 760 million adults are illiterate.
   • Millions of children are excluded from school, especially females.
2. Re-orienting existing education
   • Currently the most educated societies are leaving the deepest eco-footprints. If all societies were to develop in the same way it would require FOUR EARTHs, which would seem to indicate that education needs to be re-oriented.
   • Consider what today’s students should know, value, and be able to do when they graduate in 2020.
   • Reorienting education means addressing values, principles, perspectives, knowledge and skills.
   • An appropriate and relevant curriculum is re-oriented to integrate environment, economy, and society.
   • The curriculum balances both looking back to traditional ecological knowledge and looking forward to a more sustainable society.
   • EfS occurs at all levels - pre-school through university.
   • The school and its facility are a message.
   • The obsolete curriculum elements must be identified and eliminated.
3. Improving public awareness and understanding
   • We need a population that is aware of sustainability goals,
   • An informed voting citizenry, 
   • Knowledgeable consumers who can see beyond the "green wash" and
   • A public who are media literate and able to analyze the messages of corporate advertisers and the advertising industry.
4. Providing training
   • The world needs a workforce that is literate, environmentally aware, socially equitable, and just.
   • Training informs people of accepted practices and procedures and gives them skills to perform specific tasks.

 

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