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Schools Water Portal
The Schools Water Portal is a unique platform for educators,
students and school management to share learning resources on
water. The portal is part of the India Water portal.
The portal contains several colourful presentations, plays,
debate topics, quizzes, poems and jingles all with water as the
focal theme. The busy teacher could use these for enlivening the
class, or ease an otherwise difficult topic. All these materials
follow the set syllabus, and are free to download.
Students can search for project ideas, and watch videos
of student projects. The Principals corner is for proactive
school management interested in conducting a water audit or
implementing a rainwater harvesting system in their schools.
Some links on the site:
Activities: Several hands-on activities on science and geography
concepts, are available on the link. These can be conducted
either in class or at a water site.
Case studies: the section highlights, small initiatives taken up by
school students/community that help conserve water.
Project ideas: This section focuses on projects that students
can work on to get a better understanding of our environment.
Three types of projects are outlined in this section – descriptive,
scientific and implementation of solutions. Some of these projects
have been suggested by water experts while others are projects
that students have worked on.
Announcements: Children can know about and participate in
national and international competitions.
Water week: The link has water related quiz, plays, jingles,
poems, acitivites, debate, guest lectures etc.
For more information visit:
http://schools.indiawaterportal.org
MA in Education for Sustainable Development,
York University
The MA course in Education for Sustainable development being
offered by York University, UK is aimed at any teacher who is doing
something in the area of sustainability, either in the classroom,
through seeking Eco-School status or in its relations with the local
community, or through any of the 8 doorways policy framework
for shcools into becoming a sustainable school. ‘Sustainability’ is
interpreted broadly to include participation, global citizenship as
well as environmental issues such as energy and water, buildings
and grounds, travel and transport, purchasing and waste, food
and drink.
It is available as a part-time course. Practitioners in education
and related areas can undertake a piece of research over a two year
period.
In the first term participants attend 8 evening lectures on research
methods at York. They are allocated a supervisor and over the
next year and a half investigate their chosen area and write a
dissertation. This leads to an MA in Education by Research.
For more information visit:
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/educ/gsp/maesd.htm
E-mail: jp24@york.ac.uk
For more information on The Earth Charter visit:
http://www.earthcharterinaction.org
The Forgotten Priority: Promoting Gender Equality in ESD
Another event held at the same conference on 2nd April was ‘The
Forgotten Priority: Promoting Gender Equality in ESD’. The event
was a forum for participants to discuss activities, best practices,
and challenges, and suggested recommendations in promoting
gender equality in ESD. The discussions centered on the need to
highlight synergies between gender equality and sustainability
at the policy level and in educational practices. The conference
ended with participants recommending following action plans to
be implemented at the national and local level:
• raising awareness on gender roles and their impact as early
as possible, starting preferably in early childhood education,
so as to sensitize students’ later learning experiences;
• mainstreaming gender into ESD at all levels of education,
especially into teacher training, teacher in-service training,
and university lecturer training;
• and linking gender issues in ESD with the wider social context,
including topics such as
• ethnicity, socio-cultural background, and race.
For more information visit:
http://www.esd-world-conference-2009.org/en/specialevents/
2-april-2009.html#c2126.
5th World Environmental Education Conference
10-14 May 2009, Montreal
“Earth as our common home” was the vision for the 5th World
Environmental Education Congress that was held from 10-14th
May in Montreal.
The Congress gave nearly 2,200 stakeholders from 106 different
countries the opportunity to join forces in exploring new ways by
which we can better live together in our schools and institutions,
our neighbourhoods and businesses, our cities, towns and regions,
in short, on Earth, our common home. It was a journey of discovery
that allowed them to share knowledge on best practices, chart
new and promising paths for political action and celebrate the
plethora of approaches to environmental education.
For more information visit:
http://www.5weec.uqam.ca/EN/
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