45 years after the Conference in Tbilisi: World EE Day 2022 celebrations 

The fifth edition of the World Environmental Education Day took place from 14 october to 26 October 2022. 

The Weec Network invited all the stakeholders of environmental education to join the World Environmental Education Day organising special events to highlight the importance of environmental educational actions all over the world. 

Here we present a selection of interesting celebration taken place around the world: 

In Cameroon, People Earthwise (PEW), organise a mobilisation of schools and teachers, youths and natural resource-user groups, through various out-reach media, to engage in environmental protection actions. In particular, this year’ events included press interviews; information letters on WEE Day; EE and Environmental Protection calls through social media avenues.

Meanwhile, in Macau, the University of St. Joseph organised a two days session workshop “Measuring microplastics in the coastal environment: a citizen science workshop” on microplastic pollution. 

The workshop will train citizen scientists the steps that they can take to help understand and address microplastic pollution in our coastal environment. Participants will learn some background information about microplastics, proper sampling techniques, sample extraction and analysis through hands-on training sessions.

In South Africa, the University of the Witwatersrand and the Water Community Action Network  (WaterCAN), this year for World Environment Day, they have been teaching students how to test water quality testing, then conducting water tests in the Greater Johannesburg area as well as across the country involving other volunteer citizen scientists. The students are all in their final year of a Bachelor of Education degree and will confidently go into schools equipped with knowledge and skills to foreground the importance of water quality in environmental education. 

The Water Citizens Action Network (WaterCAN) established a ‘citizen science’ methodology that allows for an increase in citizen understanding of, and participation in, addressing South Africa’s water quality issues. The program is aimed at democratising water by involving citizens in basic monitoring of the quality of their water resources and to raise the alarm around poor quality and inadequate quantities of water. It involves a process to empower people to be able to test water resources, monitor and hold government accountable for the state of the quality and quantity of the water resources that they are receiving. 

Although this is an ongoing project to monitor water resources, it being submitted as a World Environmental Education Day 2022 campaign project to support the initiative.

As well, in Latvia, as the EE Day 2022 initiative has been organised an international conference on biodiversity from 20 to 22 October 2022 at Daugavpils University.

In Moscow, Russia, this autumn will celebrate the 35th anniversary of the free environmental education program Open Ecological University, founded in 1987 at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The project of this year has been devoted to the discussion of “Planet Earth and the need to Ecocatarise” and, besides the introductory lecture of Professor Valery S. Petrosy, there were 8 lectures of eight professors with the discussions of particular aspects of the concept. 

 In Italy, on the EE Day, Istituto per l’Ambiente e l’Educazione Scholé Futuro – Weec network organized the Earth Festival second edition.

Three days, from 14 to 16 October, in Lombardy on the Lake Maggiore river, full of events, conferences and activities thought to people awareness raising  to climate change and environmental education. The topic of the second edition of the Festival was sustainable tourism and Biodiversity. The festival is Earth Prize’s heritage, that ‘s took place for three years.  

In Canada, from 17 to 23 October, the Municipality of Dysart et al organised the Waste Reduction Week. The municipality will be educating residents about the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling with daily social media hints and tips.

Thanks to Professor André Francisco Pilon of the University of São Paulo and his studies on environment and sustainability, Brazil has formally joined the World Environmental Education Day 2022.