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science classes, if the schools are not doing anything to
reduce energy consumption themselves. Environmental
awareness is necessary, but it is not enough. We must
set a good example ourselves.
A curriculum that promotes ESD must continu-
ously be reviewed to address new environmental,
social and economic issues, and determine how they
can be tackled at a local level and more broadly. Issues
like climate change, sustainable consumption, human
rights, living values and food security also need to be
integrated in formal curricula as well as in non-formal
settings. Schools need to identify local issues and
find out how they can be dealt with through school-
based programmes. The entire community needs to be
involved to make initiatives like this work – not only
students and teaching staff, but also school managers,
non-teaching staff, and local organizations and commu-
nity groups that work with the school. Perhaps most
important of all, ESD needs the support of local authori-
ties, especially Ministries of Education, to ensure that
programmes will then be incorporated into the formal
educational system.
lishment of a concrete strategy so that we can start this debate
inside our schools to build an eco-audit in order to discover
where exactly we are being unsustainable. It is very simple: all
we need to do is trace everything we do and compare this data to
the principles of sustainability. It is not hard to identify where
we are and where we are not integrating these principles in our
curriculum – in history, in social sciences and in our daily lives.
In terms of the level of teaching and learning, we have to adopt
different strategies. In primary schools, for example, our children
need to experience the effects of sustainability first hand – they
need to know plants’ and animals’ needs and habitats; how to
reduce, reuse and recycle materials that have been used. On a more
advanced level, we can discuss biodiversity, environmental conser-
vation, energy alternatives and global warming. At university level,
besides diffusing environmental information, we can disseminate
new information and conduct related research.
ESD should have a school approach, like the Eco-School and
ideally, Sustainable School practices that have been developed in
many countries. Apart from building environmental awareness and
positive environmental attitudes and values, ESD also needs to be
reflected across school life: not just in the classroom but outside of
it too. We cannot teach students about energy conservation in their
Seeds Groups: exercising citizenship from childhood
Image: Paulo Freire Institute