Education for Sustainable Development: K-12 Resources

Ana-Isabel Ramirez-Quintana Carr, Department of Environmental Sciences-CUCBA, Donald Wayne Carr-Finch, Department of Computer Sciences. CUCEI, Víctor Bedoy-Velázquez, Hermila Brito-Palacios, Alejandro Valenzuela, Department of Environmental Sciences-CUCBA. Mexico.

http://www.educacionambiental.cucba.udg.mx/juega

Abstract

The decade of education for sustainable development will start in January 2005 supported as a resolution of UNESCO in October 2003 with the Earth Charter as an important ethical framework (http://www.earthcharter.org). This project poses new challenges for educators asking "How can I teach about sustainability?" Teaching the values targeted in the Earth Charter is the principal goal of this Web site. Teachers are the ones who create the materials for teaching sustainable development. The academic Group "Environmental Education and Sustainable Development" in Mexico, based at the University of Guadalajara has come up with this Web-based project as an answer to old needs the team has encountered. Since 1990, a group of professionals in agronomy, biology, communication, and education, have worked as a team to develop educational programs. Out of these programs we single out two: the Masters Program in Environmental Education at the Distance since 1998, andthe Continued Education Program on Environmental Education. This Continued Education Program has been available during the last three years where K-12 teachers get training on environmental education. Two thousand teachers have participated in this program so far. In these workshops there has been produced a series of materials for education on sustainable development that have not been capitalized due to the lack of a program to gather, distribute, test, and use the materials produced in these training sessions.

In June 2004, during the Latin American Consultation Tool Kit (for the Web), meeting held in Monterrey, N.L. Mexico, we decided to contribute with our educational resources to this global endeavor of the Earth Charter for the next ten years. For our Web-site, we focus on addressing the needs that professionals in basic ducation may have. Currently we are developing this Web site in Spanish: http://www.educacionambiental/cucba.udg.mx/juega. The aim is to present it in MW05.

The Web site is envisioned as a tool to help educators (teachers, parents, extension agents) to teach about the sustainable development at the k-12 level. Currently there are not many Web sites that have this vision of serving this educational purpose and in Spanish. There are many challenges we face that we can foresee. Just to mention some: Web access is not available in many Mexican schoolsteachers need support and training to find the materials on the Web and use them in the classroom, or parents at home; the work load is "already too much."

Keywords: sustainabilty, Earth Charter, k-12, Spanish, Environmental Education, Web based

The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) started in January 2005 and will be active until December 2014. This is supported by a resolution of UNESCO in October 2003 with the Earth Charter as an important ethical framework www.earthcharter.org This project poses new challenges for educators asking "How can I teach about sustainable development?" Teaching the values targeted in this effort is the principal goal of the Web site featured in this paper. Also presented is a comprehensive presentation of the current context within which environmental education activities are envisioned. All this is for Spanish speaking and reading audiences. The Internet has turned into the ideal tool to teach, with no boundaries, global issues such as the environment, and its changes. However there are invisible boundaries that keep information within limits and language that have a special role in this teaching endeavor. The language issue is one important perspective since access to information is readily available in English though in Spanish there are limited resources available that present experiences that should be relevant to people in Mexico and other countries with similar circumstances.

If anything, the DESD has been inspirational for educators at the University of Guadalajara, in the academic group "Environmental education for sustainable development" to imagine how the education should be after ten years of effort to make practical an abstract idea: sustainable development. The above has special context if we consider that the term sustainable development came to be popular with the Brundtland Report in 1987 (WHO, 2004); 18 years ago.

One of the main objectives is then, to try to make an idea, that sounds abstract, such as sustainable development, and turn it into practice. The question is then, how the Internet can help us provide a better media to communicate these ideas. There are some good efforts to support education for sustainability and this Web-site and paper are a contribution to the body of knowledge and resources already available for this purpose, in Spanish. For example there is the Website that the Organización de Estados Iberoamericanos opened as a contribution to the Decade of Education for Sustainability

Also information about the Earth Charter can be found in the official Website and the one in Spanish and additional places such as However, the materials available in Spanish are consistently limited. For instance, there is no entry for "carta de la tierra" in Wikipedia, just to mention one example of good resources in English where there is no equivalent resource in Spanish. I am actually in the process of translating the English version of the entry in Wikipedia so that it will be available in Spanish.

During the Conference Environmental Management for Sustainable Universities held in Monterrey, Nuevo León on June 9, 2004 (http://campus-sostenible.mty.itesm.mx/EMSUIII/abstracts_list.html) one of the authors of this paper participated in the Latin American Online Toolkit Consultation by the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF) (http://www.ulsf.org) and the Global Higher Education for Sustainability Partnership with the idea to contribute in the construction of a Web site to provide access in many languages to educational resources and other related materials. This session was the beginning of new proyects for the group at the University of Guadalajara and this is how we decided to make available in a Web site, putting together the large amount of material that has been developed during the experience of fifteen years working on environmental issues through education in the formal and the no-formal education.

The four guidelines of education for sustainable in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 include:

• Promotion and improvement of high quality, relevant basic education.
• The reorienting of existing education policies and programs.
• Development of public understanding and awareness.
• Specialized training programs.

With this Web site we are contributing by putting the higher education at the service of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, in a moment when the "world community is ready for ACTION" (Rebello, 2003). Hence it is emphasized that the focus should be on implementation.

The development of this Web-site brings answers to the question posted by Rebello (2003) on "What are the roles for higher education institutions in the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development?". Under the scope that universities have unique attributes that make them natural leaders for local processes in all three areas of development: "...social and economic development and environmental protection globally - and help shape public opinion and national policies on the subject. Higher education institutions can help in humanizing globalization." (Rebello, 2003).

With the Agenda 21, the county of Guadalajara is adopting DESD via a Consultation Board for the Sustainable Development of the city of Guadalajara. In this Board the University of Guadalajara has an important role to help in guiding public policies based on scientific research. The Web site that we present as K-12 resources, is also a support for training of citizens and neighborhood associations in life-long educational programs in coordination with the Unviersity of Guadalajara. This provides answers to the question: How to make the sustainability an action for development under the Decade .

The academic Group "Environmental Education and Sustainable Development" in Mexico, based at the University of Guadalajara has come up with this Web-based project as an answer to old needs the team has encountered. Since 1990, a group of professionals in agronomy, biology, communication, education, and computer sciences have worked as a team to develop educational programs. Out of these programs we single out two:

1. the Masters Program in Environmental Education at a Distance since 1998, and;
2. the Continued Education Program on Environmental Education.

This Continued Education Program has been available during the last three years where K-12 teachers get training on environmental education. Two thousand teachers have participated in this program so far. In these workshops there has been produced a series of materials for education on sustainable development that have not been capitalized on, due to the lack of a program to gather, distribute, test, and use the materials produced in these training sessions.

In June 2004, during the Latin American Consultation Tool Kit (for the Web), meeting held in Monterrey, N.L. Mexico, we decided to contribute with our educational resources to this global endeavor of the Earth Charter for the next ten years. For our Web site, we focus on addressing the needs that professionals in basic education may have, and make them available to neighborhood associations via Guadalajara County Administration as a pilot use for no-formal education. The Web site is available in Spanish at : http://www.educacionambiental.cucba.udg.mx/juega. The aim is to present it in MW05.

The Web site is envisioned as a tool to help educators (teachers, parents, extension agents, neighborhood associations) to teach about the sustainable development at the k-12 level and continuous education programs based in local government programs. Currently there are not many Web sites that have this vision of serving this educational purpose, and in Spanish. There are many challenges we face that we can foresee. Just to mention some:

1. Web access is not available in many Mexican schools;
2. teachers need support and training to find the materials on the Web and use them in the classroom, or parents at home;
3. the work load is "already too much."

This Web site has been under development by this team. We aspire that if we build it, "they will come."

Besides the work that has been developed by the continuous education program, new challenges are currently presented. The role of the higher education institutions, particularly those that are public universities or Land Grant, is to provide support and guidance to local government policies on environment, economy and social issues under a sustainable paradigm.

References

Rebello, D.D (2003) What is the role for higher education institutions in the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development? Daphne De Rebello, UNESCO, Division for the Promotion of Quality Education, Section for Education for Sustainable Development. International Association of Universities. accessed Feb 2005. http://www.unesco.org/iau/sd/pdf/Rebello.pdf

Calder, Wynn (2004) Latin American Online Toolkit Consultation by the Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future (ULSF). accessed March 2005. http://www.ulsf.org.

World Health Organization (2004). Dr. GroHalem Brundtland, Director General, Biography. accessed April, 2004. http://www.who.int/dg/brundtland/en

Cite as:

Carr, A., et al., Education for Sustainable Development: K-12 Resources, in J. Trant and D. Bearman (eds.). Museums and the Web 2005: Proceedings, Toronto: Archives & Museum Informatics, published March 31, 2005 at http://www.archimuse.com/mw2005/papers/carr/carr.html