Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
dynamics rather than static states, and wholes rather than parts. Systems or holistic
thinking crosses disciplinary boundaries and eschews either/or dichotomies or
mechanistic cause and effect metaphors. Most sustainability issues, such as climate
change, are indeed highly complex, requiring new knowledge and approaches to
problem identification and understanding that are not reducible to simple analyses
or single disciplinary solutions. For Sterling (2004), systems thinking is related to
three dimensions:
•
perception
- extending our viewpoint and boundaries of concern;
•
conception
- helping us recognize connections and patterns of relationship; and
•
action
- helping us to design and act in a holistic and integrative way.
Underpinning ESD is the aim to encourage people to become eco-literate. This
involves being able to comprehend the world holistically and developing the knowledge
and capacity to perceive its overall interrelatedness. It must fully engage with a set
of ethical values embracing notions of care or stewardship, environmental justice,
and community (Bowers, 2001). An eco-literate person is not just a person who
thinks and feels; at the base of his or her ecological perspective must be a practical
competence that enables action and the generation of knowledge derived from the
experience of doing. To this end, eco-literacy is more likely to be developed non-
formally in community-based action-orientated learning activities than in formal
settings like schools (Wharbuton, 2006). So, as David Orr (1992: 92) notes, 'knowing,
caring, and practical competence constitute the basis of ecological literacy', with
Earth-centred education constantly seeking to nurture that quality of mind that seeks
out connections. ESD must therefore broadly ensure that cognitive, affective and
aesthetic domains of learning are not compartmentalized. An understanding of the
signs and symbols, metaphors and stories, tools and technologies (traditional and
emerging) that bind people into networks of understanding and which constitute
new relationships between self and others, and self and the 'natural world' are
required.
The Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) established the Eco-Schools
International Programme as a response to the needs identified at the 1992 Earth
Summit. Officially starting in 1994 with the support of Germany, Denmark, Greece
and the United Kingdom, by 2013 it runs in fifty-three countries linking up over
40,000 schools. Participating schools work towards certification in nine areas,
including: energy, water, biodiversity, school grounds, healthy living, transport,
litter, waste and global citizenship. This work, the programme claims, enhances the
National Curriculum and can save money, too. In England, 11,358 schools have
either gained bronze, silver or Green Flag awards. Local Education Authorities in
the London Borough of Southwark and in Wigan, Lancashire, have registered over
85 per cent and 95 per cent of their schools with the scheme. In the United States,
the Sustainable Schools Project aims to work with schools and communities to
cultivate responsible and informed future citizens. The campus and community are
in effect extensions of the classroom. The K-5 Sustainability Academy, an elementary
school at Lawrence Barnes in Burlington, Vermont, US), is a collaborative partnership
involving families, educators and the wider community including other educational
bodies and the University of Vermont. The Academy's Schoolyard Transformation
Project started in 2009, with a series of design charettes that identified outdoor
