IHITZA 46 - News from schools
ECO-BRIGADES AT MERCEDARIAS SCHOOL, GASTEIZ
Schools are the main players in the Agenda 21 project (EA21): we have no doubts about that at Mercedarias School, Gasteiz. We have set up eco-brigades in all years to encourage pupils to take part.
Responsibility for following up the issues which are worked on is shared by all years of compulsory education, both primary and secondary.
The pupils in each year know what they have to research, and how and approximately when that have to do so, because all this information has been appropriately specified. Follow-up areas have been established. Furthermore, each brigade has put its own poster on its classroom door. Inspection work is carried out by groups and if something wrong is found, this is recorded in the register.
Some brigades are also involved in making pupils in certain years aware of these issues and encouraging them to take part, visiting their classrooms (consumer habits), writing notes on the board (waste materials) and putting up posters (green areas).
Until present we have set up the following brigades:
- Green Area Brigade. 1st Year Primary Education, 1st Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Electricity Brigade. 2nd Year Primary Education, 2nd Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Garden Brigade. 3rd Year Primary Education, 3rd Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Water Brigade. 4th Year Primary Education, 4th Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Responsible Consumers Brigade. 5th Year Primary Education, 1st Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Recycling Brigade. 6th Year Primary Education, 4th Year Compulsory Secondary Education
- Annual Diagnosis: Compulsory Secondary Education
This is an effective system for organising school equipment, making the information posters seen and for encouraging pupils to take part. From now on this will enable us to gather complete research data about consumer habits and analyse it.
Dorleta Encina, EA21 Coordinator
SUSTAINABILITY AND BIODIVERSITY SEALS
Biodiversity has been under debate as part of the EA21 (School Agenda 21) project in the school year which has just finished. Amongst other things, we have worked on a didactic plan for making pupils aware of how daily consumer habits can impact biodiversity, encouraging them to discuss the issue.
To this end, we have looked at seals for certifying sustainable consumption; well-known ones and in connection with different areas (wood, trees and forests; sustainable fishing; the cosmetics industry; ecological farming; and, of course, Fair Trade).
We have worked on this with Compulsory Secondary Education pupils, specifying the details to each seal and, in groups and individually, we have seen how the seals protect biodiversity (in the widest possible sense).
We also looked into how widely these seals are accepted in our society. In other words, whether local shops have them, they are used at schools, pupils and their family buy products with them, etc.
The next step will be to publish our results. This will be an interesting process, above all because we have reflected about the data, which helps us to change attitudes and make commitments individually, as families and as institutions. Some related objectives have also been achieved. The most notable of these has been realising that taking care of biodiversity is our responsibility.
We have taken our research further, drawing up a list of our proposals for increasing the planet's sustainability, going from the school to the community, the town hall and the municipal area. There is a clear message: we can and must influence taking care of biodiversity at school and in our town.
San Paulino de Nola School, Salesians of Don Bosco, Barakaldo.
SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AT SCHOOLS IN PERU
We found out about EA21 Project and its methods thanks to the people at Ingurugela-CEIDA. At present we are developing and putting into practice everything we learned from the Sustainable Environmental Education Training Programme in schools, associations and municipalities in Peru. Objective: promoting structures in society.
This work enables us to identify, organise and provide response to schools’ and local communities' needs. This is effective on different levels: education, environment, social problems etc. We have also realised that areas of interest and environmental problems are similar in different places: waste materials, drinking water, the effect of waste water on local diversity, sustainable consuming, food self-sufficiency, etc.
We have become fully aware that human influence is negative and, in order to avoid the problems created, or at least to address them, education is the way forward; in conjunction with promoting a sustainable attitude towards the environment.
Self-organization and awareness campaigns are indispensable to guarantee the programme's success. Organization is horizontal and transparent, and different stakeholders take part in it. In this way we avoid planning for projects and the evaluation of their viability being left exclusively to the organizing groups or departments.
The most difficult part of the awareness campaign is accepting the idea that each individual has to change his/her attitude. This means that awareness campaigns have to be increasingly practical and participative.
This change in attitude leads us to a situation of shared responsibility and the objectives listed in the project plan being adapted to different local realities. And, at the same time, it provides a solution for a related problem, at least in Peru: risk management and environmental awareness from an educational point of view.
Environmental education is made possible by the combined force of institutional, pedagogical and environmental management.
Patricia Miryam Acosta, Indarra Dole Kallpa and the Salvando la Tierra educational and environmental management association