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Sustainable
Environmental Education
Wow, a whole year has passed
by so quickly! I hope that you have learnt more about your environment
and implemented environmental education activities within your school clubs.
Yonge Nawe would like to introduce
the concept of sustainable development within the school clubs throughout
the country for 2003.
What is sustainable development?
The original definition given
by the World Commission on Environment and Development was:
"Development that meets the
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations
to meet their own needs."
Because development was not
working equally well for everyone and was degrading the environment, the
word sustainable had to be added to qualify the concept. It is now generally
agreed that sustainable development has three elements:
i) Social concerned
with who makes the rules, who controls access to resources and the means
of production, who benefits and who carries the costs.
ii) Economic which
is about the way in which things are defined as resources and produced
as resources through investment, labour and technologies.
iii) Environmental
which is about natural systems that sustain life and also, places where
people live, work, etc.
These three elements have to be
balanced for sustainable development to happen. Yonge Nawe realises that
schools clubs were predominantly purely environmental focused and thus
only focusing on a single pillar of sustainable development. We now want
to include the social and economic pillars of sustainable development within
the schools programme.
Conserving the environment
is key to sustainable development |
Yonge Nawe sees Sustainable
Development Education as a life-long process in which knowledge is imparted
and correct skills, attitudes and behaviour are developed to safeguard
our environment for future generations. It is a gradual process and the
outcomes are not necessarily tangible or attainable overnight. |
However, the term is embracing
both teaching and learning irrespective of age. In 2003, Yonge Nawe will
be using her mobile information service to targeted schools. The mobile
information service will encourage amongst others:
-
Creative thinking
-
Problem solving skills
-
A sense of participation and responsibility
(EE processes or action project)
-
Expose learners to real life situations
(hands-on activities) and relate learning activities to what to encounter
in daily lives
-
Self-discovery
-
Decision making
-
Debates
-
Drama
-
Art with waste
Thus Sustainable Development Education
will enable people to live in harmony with natural resources (water, air,
soil, animals etc.), maintain good quality of life considering that there
are still generations to come. This approach enables the exploration of
environmental issues through educational experiences and reflection in
the environment, knowledge about the environment and appropriate commitments
and action for the environment.
To work towards maintaining
harmony between natural resources and people with their creation it has
to start with considering each person’s attitudes and actions. That is
why we need some environmental considerations and proper engagement in
our education system.
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