<
https://dialogue.earth/en/nature/environmental-education-gains-ground-in-latin-america/>
"“Environmental education has gone from being something very niche to a central
issue on the agenda,” says Zelmira May, an education specialist for Unesco in
Latin America. “Before, this issue was not very relevant in Latin America.
Today the situation is completely different.”
Though this branch of education is still developing, since the first
international discussions on the subject in the 1970s, its central objective
has been to develop an “environmental rationality” among citizens – that is, to
be aware of the intertwined nature of ecosystems, biophysical processes, and
human activity.
Signed in 1975, the Belgrade Charter was the world’s first international
declaration on environmental education. At the time, the UN said: “We need
nothing short of a new global ethic – an ethic which espouses attitudes and
behaviours for individuals and societies which are consistent with humanity’s
place within the biosphere.”
But that first conception contrasts significantly with contemporary public
policy. Verónica Cáceres, a researcher at Argentina’s National Council for
Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet), says the Belgrade Charter was
informed by conservationism. “It was in the 1990s when the discussion turned to
education for sustainable development,” she explains, “which integrated human
activities and nature on the same level.”
At the time of writing, there were 89 recorded examples of environmental policy
instruments implemented by Latin American governments that incorporated
education. Most of them establish inter-ministerial work plans that seek to
implement projects at the elementary, middle- and high-school levels. An
inter-ministerial approach allows environmentalism to cut across the
curriculum, teacher training, and the development of green technology and
infrastructure.
However, as a world region Latin America is one of the lowest investors in
education. According to World Bank data, the region’s public spending averages
for education have slumped to lows not seen in 20 years. These challenges only
add pressure to the difficult task of coordinating educational projects between
national and local governments.
These circumstances have led many teachers – especially in small schools – to
manage environmental projects in their localities themselves: the tasks of
talking to authorities, obtaining funding and entering competitions to bring
visibility all fall to them. Here,
Dialogue Earth shares the success stories
of three such teachers in Latin America."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-water-sanitation-hygiene-poverty-cambodia-barn-owls-uk/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
