Tomorrow Today

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Earth Scouts, takes a powerful model – the Boy and Girl Scouts –

and updates it for life on a finite planet, putting ecological citizenship

at the very heart of the training and philosophy of the organization.

Increasing resources and community support for this type of organ-

ization could help give children more opportunities to experience

the outdoors and better understand the importance of their role as

ecological stewards, while also providing exercise, more opportunities

to build friendships and community cohesion.

Sustainability in formal education

Finally, as important as restructuring time out of school, is restructuring

time in school, so that all aspects of formal education reinforce sustain-

ability. Transforming school lessons goes far beyond what is taught in

classrooms, but to succeed, it will need to include all aspects of the school

day, from lunch and recess, to even the very commute to school.

In many countries of the world, people commute to school in a bus

or car, rather than on foot or bike. But some towns are proactively

changing this. The town of Lecco in Italy, for example, replaced its

school buses with ‘walking buses’, and today the town’s 450 elemen-

tary school students walk with parents and volunteer ‘drivers’ to their

ten different schools.

Along with preventing over 160,000 kilome-

tres of driving (and the resultant pollution) since their creation in

2003, these walking buses have played an important part in teaching

road safety, providing exercise and connecting children to nature.

In the classroom, teachers will need to prioritize sustainability in

their lessons. First and foremost, this will mean tackling business-

sponsored teaching materials that can subtly spread a company’s

agenda. School teachers, too often starved of resources, end up

taking the materials that are available.

Finding revenue to provide

materials will be an important way to prevent this.

Beyond this will be the more comprehensive effort to integrate

environmental literacy throughout all courses – language, maths,

sciences, social studies and so on – rather than relegating it to one

elective course in school, as is so often the case today. Moreover,

as the media are so influential, special care should be made to inte-

grate media literacy into school courses. The good news is that there

are now efforts in a number of countries, and by UNESCO as well,

to accelerate media literacy programming in schools – efforts that

will hopefully grow during the coming years, as over USD640 billion

continues to be spent on advertising every year, making

increasing media literacy essential.

Outside of the classroom, particularly in the school play-

ground, schools can benefit significantly from the creation

of school gardens. These gardens (and community gardens

beyond the school walls) can play a powerful part in recon-

necting children to the natural cycles of Earth, and give

them a deeper understanding of their dependence on the

planet for their survival. Plus, gardens can provide exercise

and a direct connection with healthy foods (andmore will-

ingness to eat them). Research has also found that time in

gardens improves mental well-being.

Finally, gardening

provides an important skill –one that in the future may be

very valuable as the consumer economy butts against the

limits of planet Earth and more people return to farming

for their livelihoods.

One important part of the school day that is often

ignored is lunch. Eating habits are learned from early

childhood and providing high-fat, high-sugar foods to

children sets them up not just for increased levels of

childhood obesity, but also for a lifetime of unhealthy

eating. The good news is that all around the world,

school systems are working to shift the menus to healthy,

local, sustainable foods. Rome is leading the way, with

its cafeterias now providing meals to the city’s 150,000

students with ingredients that are now more than two-

thirds organic, 26 per cent local and 14 per cent fair

trade.

While few cities are that advanced, many are

starting to tackle this difficult issue. Even Washington,

D.C. recently banned flavoured milks in the city’s school

cafeterias, which is a good sign for the US capital.

Finally, while working on enhancing childhood

experience, we must remember that addressing child-

hood without addressing the other stages of life will

reduce the odds of success dramatically. While working

to change the media’s messages to children, we also

need to address media messages to all citizens. While

adjusting elementary school curricula, extracurricu-

lar activities and museum priorities, we also need to

work on the teaching priorities of all levels of school-

ing – from nursery all the way up to university and

professional schools.

Imagine if doctors were taught how to prevent illness

by teaching patients how to live healthily, or future busi-

ness leaders were taught that a good business maximizes

social well-being, not simply profit. And at the same

time, imagine if TV commercials reminded people to eat

their vegetables, and magazines like Fortune celebrated

the Top 100 Business Leaders each year not by meas-

uring their company’s earnings but by how much good

their businesses did that year. Education can be a central

tool to persuade our cultures to focus on sustainability,

but only with significant commitment from educational

leaders and support by policymakers and media leaders

to support this shift. Only when we can reorient all of

these powerful institutions can we hope to live in a

culture where living sustainably feels as natural as living

as a consumer feels today, and only then can we ensure

a sustainable and secure future for humanity.

Young students plant a vegetable garden at their elementary school in Washington, D.C.

Image: Earth Sangha