Sustainability and Education

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Education, raising of public awareness and education for sustainability are linked to virtually all areas in People’s Agenda 21. Getting the word out and educating people on how to face environmental and sustainability challenges of today is vitally important. Working together we can become efficient in these areas and not only solve problems, but make the world a better place together.

OVERVIEW

• Sustainability and Education
• Sustainability in Education
• Environmental Education Curriculum

SUSTAINABILITY AND EDUCATION

Education, including formal education, public awareness, and sustainability education can be recognized as a process by which human beings and societies can reach their fullest potential because of the amazing benefits of living sustainably, with zero waste and optimal, clean production methods which are 100% renewable. Education is key for demonstrating sustainable development and improving the ability of the people to address environment and development issues.

Ideas for those interested in implementation

• Communities can strive to prepare and integrate strategies aimed at implementing environment and sustainable development as a cross-curricula issue into education at all levels
• People can set up pre-service and in-service education programs for all teachers, administrators, and educational planners, as well as non-formal educators in all sectors, addressing the nature and methods of environmental and development education
• Support information exchange by creating or enhancing technologies (websites) and capacities beneficial to demonstrate environment and sustainable development education and public awareness. People can create, demonstrate, and promote various types of adult education programs for continuing education in environment and sustainable development
• Communities and educational authorities can foster opportunities for women in non-traditional fields and eliminate gender stereotyping in curricula
• Communities can affirm the rights of indigenous peoples, by action if beneficial, to use their experience and understanding of sustainable development to play a part in education and education

SUSTAINABILITY IN EDUCATION

Our environment and our health as humans is directly interrelated. From this understanding public sensitivity to environment arises and interest in understanding development problems and involvement in their solutions. Thus a sense of personal care for environmental involvement and greater motivation and commitment towards sustainable development evolves. Together we can demonstrate broad public awareness as a beneficial part of a global education effort to help support attitudes, values and actions friendly with the environment we live in and sustainable development for human betterment. It is helpful to stress the principle of decentralizing authority, accountability and resources to the most appropriate level with preference given to local development and control over awareness-building activities. By giving preference to the most local level, the people immediately affected by their unique problems get to solve their own problems.

Ideas for those interested in implementation

• Public participation in discussions of environmental and sustainable infrastructure and assessment. Communities can also facilitate and support individual and local to local networking of information through existing networks
• Transparency and sharing of information to the public is vitally important. As important is ease of access to information for the general public. All information, meeting times, etc. should be made easily available. Communities and the People’s Organizing Bodies system can demonstrate a cooperative relationship with the media, popular theater groups, and entertainment and advertising industries by initiating discussions to mobilize their experience in shaping public behavior and consumption patterns
• Communities can demonstrate, as appropriate, environmentally sound leisure and tourism activities making suitable use of museums, heritage sites, zoos, botanical gardens, individual and local parks, and other protected areas
• Communities and the People’s Organizing Bodies system can increase their interaction with and include, as appropriate, indigenous people in the management, planning and development of their local environment, and can demonstrate dissemination of traditional and socially learned knowledge through means based on local customs, especially in rural areas, integrating these efforts with the electronic media, whenever appropriate

ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CURRICULUM

Education is one of the most important tools to develop human resources and facilitate the transition to a more sustainable world. It can have a job-specific focus, aimed at filling gaps in knowledge and skill that would help individuals find employment and be involved in environmental and development work. At the same time, education programs can demonstrate a greater awareness of environment and development issues as a two-way learning process.

Ideas for those interested in implementation

• To support or help support vocational education programs that meet the needs of environment and sustainable development with on-going access to education opportunities, regardless of social status, age, gender, race or religion
• To demonstrate a flexible and adaptable workforce of various ages equipped to meet growing environment and development problems and changes arising from the transition to a sustainable society
• To support environmental and human ecological considerations being integrated at all managerial levels and in all functional management areas, such as marketing, production and finance
• Communities can identify workforce education needs and assess measures to be taken to meet those needs
• Communities can demonstrate all sectors of society, such as industry, universities, people and employees, non-governmental organizations and community organizations, to include an environmental management component in all relevant education activities, with emphasis on meeting immediate skill needs through short-term formal and in-plant vocational and management education. Environmental management education capacities can be help supported, and specialized “education of trainers” programs can be supported to support education at the individual and local and enterprise levels. New education approaches for existing environmentally sound practices can be developed that create employment opportunities and make maximum use of local resource-based methods