Campus, casa, cidade: laboratories of change

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The University of Coruña and Alcoa foundation organise the Educating for Sustainability Course, under the title Campus, casa, cidade: laboratorios do cambio.

This project has the objective to advance a community and university formation, share basic concepts of environmental and social sustainability and develop a capacity to act on priority issues.
The program includes lectures, theoretical-practical training sessions, field work and monitored and autonomous field works. It combines individual and group work, in the use of apartment, at the campus or at the campus as places of study and experimentation.
With a calendar distributed from March to June, you can choose the topic, place and time of your participation.

Contamination, waste, climate change, resources, health … activities include the calculation of the ecological footprint, the water footprint, noise maps and water consumption, audits of water and energy consumption in the home, and all through the Use of ICTs as tools for participatory georeferencing and networking

Read the program here

Mario Salomone, Secretery General of the  WEEC (World Environmental Education Congress) will be present with a conference on March 13th, h 17:00, Faculty of Educational Science, with a speech focus on the education for sustainability.

campuscasacidade_triptico

RESCLIMA international seminar: Education for climate change

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The 4th RESCLIMA international seminar: Education for climate change in the educational system and the 2nd meeting of the Rede internaional de pesquisadores em educação ambiental e justiça climática (REAJA) will take place in Santiago de Compostela (Spain) on October 26 and 27, 2018.

The registration period is open, as well as for the submission of proposals to present communications and posters, whose deadline is the next March 15.

The climate change is the big challenge of the XXI century. Urge to be aware of human vulnerability this threat, as well as accepting the biggest responsibility of the companies that most contributed emissions of greenhouse gas (GHG), which contrasts with the lower capacity of the answer to the effects of an out-of-control climate. Alarms in the scientific community warn that we have little time to react. In a few years there will have to be a major social, economic and energy transformation to avoid the collapse of civilization as we know it.
At this crossroads, the slowness of climate policies are surprising. Climate changes occupy a marginal place in the public area and are far from being a priority issue for decision-makers or the general population.
The fundamental objective of educational and communication programs in the next decade should be to convert the climate changes into a relevant and significant problem.

The RESCLIMA project addresses the relationship between science and popular culture in social representations of climate change: contributions to education and communication on climate risks. It explores the complex logic involved in the construction of popular knowledge and the role that scientific culture plays in popular thinking on climate change. RESCLIMA responds to the need for greater understanding of the ‘social factor’ in climate change, to better inform the design of policies, programmes and educational/communicational resources regarding general and specific socio-environmental issues. This web site is designed to facilitate public interface with the project, to make known its most prominent results from the very earliest phases, and to generate multi-directional information pathways with other researchers and with society in general.

Read the program in Spanish

Read the program in Portuguese

The Walking Curriculum, a new tool for Environmental Education

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The Walking Curriculum is an innovative interdisciplinary resource for educators K-12 who want to take student learning outside school walls. Walking Curriculum activities can be used in any context to develop students’ Sense of Place and to enrich their understanding of curricular topics. Based on principles of Imaginative Ecological Education, the 60 easy-to-use walking-focused activities in this resource are designed to engage students’ emotions and imaginations with their local natural and cultural communities, to broaden their awareness of the particularities of Place, and to evoke their sense of wonder in learning. Through walking we can enrich our students’ sense-making abilities, we can enhance their very being and, as we go, we can seed with meaning the contexts in which they spend so many hours learning.

In the 60 walks described in this resource you will see a variety of themes, perspectives, and motivations. For example, students may be asked to find different things (such as shapes, spaces or lines, evidence of growth or change, “the best” hiding places), to change perspectives (imagine being a beetle, a detective, or a visitor from outer space), to encounter the world differently (emphasizing one sense over another or moving through space differently), to seek evidence of human-nature relationships, to identify patterns, or to locate natural or human systems in action. In all cases, the intent is to broaden their  awareness of the particularities of Place. The activities are designed to: engage the body, emotions, and imagination in ways that can increase students’ familiarity with the local natural context in which they go to school; increase students’ attention to detail and their attunement with Place; connect Place-based learning activities with cross-curricular goals; and serve as examples for your own, Place-inspired teaching ideas.

Overview: Introductory chapters provide a rationale for the Walking Curriculum and describe the underlying educational philosophy it reflects. Detail is provided so you can prepare to use the resource as well as extend and enrich your students’ learning. The walks themselves are divided into three sets: The 30 walks are paired with guiding questions and an imaginative activity or prompt to engage students’ emotions. These are the easiest walks for you to employ; they require little direct teaching or guidance ahead of time. They are readily adaptable for students of all ages. The second set contains 15 walks requiring some direct instruction and guidance; they will work better if they are properly introduced and contextualized. The final set of 15 walks is specifically designed for High School students and reflects interdisciplinary curricular outcomes.

Where To Get The Walking Curriculum

Get a paperback/ebook HERE in USA or HERE in the UK. Ebooks available in CANADA HERE. (Other markets available, so just search in Amazon) NOTE: All proceeds from sales support imaginED—a blog for imaginative educators by imaginative educators (free for all teachers)

About The Author

Dr. Gillian Judson is a member of the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University in B.C., Canada, one of the directors of the Imaginative Education Research Group (IERG), and coordinator of Imaginative Ecological Education initiatives. Her work is primarily concerned with the role of imagination in learning (PreK-Higher Education). As an educational consultant she explores imagination in the context of ecological education, educational program design, higher education, educational change, educational leadership, and Museum Education. She has written two books on Imaginative Ecological Education: Engaging Imagination In Ecological Education: Practical Strategies For Teaching (UBC Press; 2015) and A New Approach To Ecological Education: Engaging Students’ Imaginations In Their World (Peter Lang, 2010). Learn more about the Imaginative Ecological Education, or IEE, approach here.

Strategy for ESD, the commitment of Italian Institutions

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by Patrizia Bonelli

The Italian Strategy for ESD was updated by the Ministry of Education in the Plan for Education to Sustainability on July the 28th 2017. The plan meets the goals of Agenda 2030 on sustainability.
Actually the road map towards the implementation of ESD in Italy has been long and difficult, marked by the following steps:
2009, 2010, 2014: Guide-Lines for Environmental Education
2015 Strategy for ESD law 221
2016 Agreement for PON (National Operative Program)
2015 Reform of school art.6 law107underlining the importance of: Knowledge and respect for environment Active & democratic citizenship
20/22 November 2016 States General – Paper of Rome
Signed by the Minister of Education & the Minister of Environment

18 July 2017 the Strategy presented to HLPF of UN by the Minister of Environment
28 July 2017 updating of Italian Strategy for ESD by the minister of Education in the Plan for Education to Sustainability
PON, National Operative Programme 2014/2020, for schools financed by Structural European funds is an important step but the most relevant is certainly the meeting of States General (Paper of Rome) which included scientific community, civil society, productive and economic world and Institutions. They agreed upon the Strategy for ESD for the implementation of agenda 2030 including strategies, projects, methods, actions. They identified priority areas in climate change, green economy, legality and environment protection.

The most important supporting principles of the paper of Rome take advantage from the existing opportunities as the alternation school –work to involve students from secondary schools in start-up and projects of research thanks to agreements between schools and public and private companies and enterprises.

The updating of the Strategy on ESD presented on the 28th of July 2017 is based on:
20 actions in 4 macro areas that intend to assure that all the buildings of the Ministry will be perfectly sustainable, from the central buildings to all the schools and Universities (5 million euro). Moreover, all the staff and teachers will be trained to promote awareness and ability in education for sustainability. For that purpose, 20 million euro are provided to introduce ESD in the schools of every order and level.
University and research are encouraged and economically supported in the offer of training, courses and graduation in ESD at any level. Scholarships for students’ mobility is financed by 65 Ph.D. grants coherent with the goals of agenda 2030.

Information and Communication will be widened not just to disseminate official positions and documents, but also good practices of single schools and research of universities for sustainability.

The institutional effort of the Ministry of Education (MIUR) has been always carried on in synergy with the Ministry of Environment (MATTM) but the Minister of Education is particularly involved in many strategic choices as Vector 4 of Agenda 2030 asks for “quality education as fundamental axis of SD being a crossing element for the change offering awareness and ability in communication”.
Knowledge is fundamental to fight poverty, to support economy, to promote an open and inclusive society.
Thanks to the Three-dimensional approach of ESD: environmental-social-economic, the challenge may turn into opportunities.
As a matter of fact, sustainability doesn’t relay just on education and didactics but also in the context and buildings.
Schools and Universities, as micro worlds, need to become completely sustainable, in the buildings themselves, to reduce energy and water consumption (production or storage), in the correct management of waste. Finally, ESD has to be included in programmes and curricula during all the scholastic years and beyond towards long life learning and no formal or informal education. Support, inclusion and empowering have to be ensured to no governmental organizations supplying no formal or informal education and methods of active education.
In the National Education System, ESD is not considered just a further discipline, it is included in the main teachings; in the Ministerial guide lines of 2015 each discipline is re-examined from the point of view of ESD.
Moreover, territorial agreements are strongly supported to involve Local Authorities and Civil Society to contribute to ESD programs with central administration and schools.
The plan behind the updating of the Strategy of ESD presented on the 28th July 2017, has been built thank to a working group of experts, ministerial directors and managers who worked to facilitate networking and collaboration among experts and educators in ESD for the promotion of actions and for the dissemination of knowledge and skills, lifestyles and models of sustainable production and consumption.
The working group made proposals for dissemination of ESD addressed to any level of education and upper education, actions for the development and support of research and university didactics sustainability oriented, the construction of informal education, the support of the good governance of administration.
The plan meets the goals of Agenda 2030 and make of sustainability the main axis which shapes all the policy of the Ministry of Education: from buildings, to teachers’ training, from the central administration to the access to the university, to didactics and research.
Moreover, the plan was informed by the supporting principles of ESD from UN documents to the Paper of Rome (States General). The Teaching coming from the Ministry of Environment that promoted The States General.

The Paper of Rome recommends to face ESD in an inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary optics, according to a systemic vision of knowledge. To use interactive, participative, innovative methodologies, requiring an emotional and behavioural involvement, besides rational thought. It proposes to ensure teachers and educators a kind of training, arousing also the ability to build interdisciplinary routes and innovative participative teaching methodologies, and also to assess their efficacy.
It also invites to involve in education and training a wide network of actors: educators, students, parents, associations, institutions, societies, universities, research teams, an alliance between school and out of school world and to enjoy the reciprocal benefits. In the end, the Paper of Rome advises and insists to start from a stronger link with the territory, through concrete experiences on the field and exploration of the places.

Sao Paolo University is looking for a researcher, postdoc level, in environmental governance

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The Institut of Energy and Environment (IEE) from São Paulo University (USP) wishes to appoint highly qualified candidates for one new research positions at postdoctoral level.
This vacancy is linked to the Thematic Project “Environmental Governance of the Macrometropole Paulista facing climatic variability” funded by the Sao Paulo Research Foundation – FAPESP. This proposal consists of an integrative approach between the scientific production of the thematic research project and the perspective of a necessary process of social learning involving society and managers focused on the Socio-environmental Governance of Sao Paulo’s Macrometropolis, characterized by the perspective of interdisciplinary academic innovation and with the aim of contributing to public management in the region based on the results achieved by the subprojects that make up this thematic project.

Planned activities are directed to the consolidation of scientific production, educational strategies and scientific dissemination around the object of study, the Macrometropolis, promotion of a feedback process incorporating different knowledge and promotion of means to increase academic knowledge in order to subsidize opportunities for social and environmental governance. The work will be carried out at the Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE) of the University of São Paulo (USP). Candidates must have previous proven experience in interdisciplinary work, especially in the areas of urban planning, climate change and the environment. As well as empirical experience in fieldwork, research and project management.

Application via the Internet: until March 8, 2018;
Dissemination of the results, with the classification of the selected ones: until March 18, 2018; Start of the scholarship: April 20, 2018.
Duration of the scholarship: 2 years with the possibility of renewal by 1 year and another 1, depending on the candidate performance.
Amount of the grant: R $ 7,174.80, approximately € 1,800 or US $ 2,225.

 

 

 

 

Oxford Spring School in Ecological Economics

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The School will take place at St Hilda’s College, Oxford and will address key elements of the new economy transformation, exploring the cutting edge methods and policy applications in ecological economics, with a particular focus on Green Economy for Countries, Cities and Regions: Ecosystems, Economy, Policy. With a clear sustainable development focus, it will draw on the expertise of a range of disciplines: economics, ecology, physics, environmental sciences, finance, politics, international relations, sociology, psychology, complex systems theory, etc. to address the current challenges: climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, water shortages, social cohesion and achieving sustainability.
The course will be composed of theoretical and applied modules and will address the key elements of the environment-economy interaction: the foundations of ecological economics, methodological approaches, finance for the green economy, ecological conflicts, the story of REDD, economic instruments, regulation, environmental taxes, environmentally extended input-output analysis, multiple criteria methods, as well as renewable energy, regenerative cities, ecosystem service and case studies from around the world. The Summer School will feature interactive simulation games.
The lecturers will include the leaders in the field of ecological economics: Dr Joachim Spangenberg (SERI Germany), Prof. Juan Martinez-Alier (Autonomous University of Barcelona), Dr Stanislav Shmelev (Environment Europe Ltd), Prof. Robert Ayres (INSEAD), Dr Stefan Speck (European Environment Agency), Ambassador Kevin Conrad (Coalition for Rainforest Nations), Prof. Dave Elliott (The Open University), Prof. Herbert Girardet (The Club of Rome), Prof. Irina Shmeleva (Institute of Sustainable Development Strategies).
The course is designed for multiple points of entry and could be helpfulfor PhD students, government experts, representatives of international organizations and business. The course will give participants an opportunity to explore key methodologies for ecological-economic analysis and to apply these to various case studies. Oxford and SummerWinter Schools in Ecological Economics organized by Environment Europe attracted participants from over 40 countries, including Canada, USA, Mexico, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, UK, France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Sweden, Bosnia, Latvia, Ghana, Nigeria, Jordan, Sri Lanka, China, India, Taiwan, and Australia, including UNEP, UNDP, IUCN, OECD, ILO, DEFRA staff, NGOs, academia and business, including Shell and Deloitte.

Environmental data from below

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The 7th STS Italia Conference will be hosted at the University of Padova, Italy, June 14 through 16, 2018, by the Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies, in collaboration with the FISPPA Department and the University of Padova. The focal theme of the 7th STS Italia Conference will be Technoscience from Below.
 The conference will be an opportunity to present empirical and theoretical work from a variety of disciplines and fields: sociology, anthropology, design, economics, history, law, philosophy, psychology and semiotics.  By focusing on Technoscience from Below, the 7th STS Italia Conference will offer the opportunity to explore alternative co-productive paths of science, technology, and innovation.
The conference will be articulated in 26 tracks, clustered in five main thematic streams: 1) Participation, citizen engagement and democracy from below; 2) The shaping of biomedicine, medical expertise and healthcare from below; 3) Innovation, design and standardization from below; 4) Imaginaries, knowledge and networks from below; 5) Including and connecting from below.

The panel on “Environmental data from below” is about the governance of the environment, inextricably linked to data. Interventions, policies and future scenarios for sustainability are all based on data generated and analysed
within specific institutional settings, such as supranational agencies, environmental protection agencies and official statistics.
In this sense, the activities of analysis, publication and diffusion of environmental data actively contribute to shape and delimit the field of environmental governance’s authority through expertise.
Whatever the strategy pursued by decision makers may be (e.g. to defuse possible conflicts; to enlarge consensus), procedures of data collection and analysis, as well as
their purpose, tend to be restricted to within accredited settings and further performed in institutional loci.
Currently, these patterns may be bypassed by new trajectories of engagement that develop alternative processes of empowerment for non-experts.
Social movement research has signalled the growing tendency of grassroots movements, NGOs and activists to contest official data. Statactivism is conceptually a
specific kind of participation as well as contestation by non-institutional actors using
data analysis. Other research fellowships refer to data activism as particularly focusing
on digital technologies adopted for the collection of data. This general tendency invests the environmental domain as well, and it offers new forms of participation through data. Indeed, environmental movements as well as other concerned groups not only put the role of institutional expertise under scrutiny; they can also contribute to developing alternative forms of scientific knowledge production. Thus, participation is transforming through the challenge of creating evidence and the organisation of data collection from below. This contrasts with solicited forms of participation through data, such as citizen-science projects.
An S&TS perspective, paying attention to socio-technical assemblages of data  infrastructures and the practices related to them, may bring a better understanding of these ongoing processes.
Therefore, the present track aims to gather theoretical as well as empirical proposals focussed on combinations of heterogeneous actors in relationship to data collection, management and sharing of environmental issues, such as (but not only limited to):
– heterogeneous assemblages for the generation of environmental data from below;
– design and creation of ad hoc infrastructures for data collection, analysis and sharing of environmental data;
– practices of maintenance and management of bottom
– up data infrastructures;
– analysis of expertise aligned for the implementation of data infrastructures from
below;
– practices of civic hacking for the environment; and
– the role of alternative baselines as new tools of political environmental participation

Convenor: Paolo Giardullo, University of Padova (Italy) paolo.giardullo@unipd.it

Conference website

Call for abstract beforeFebruary 15th

Opportunities for Environmental Education, a new free resource

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“The current secondary school curriculum, for all its faults, does provide numerous opportunities for schools, teachers and students to explore a wide range of the world’s most pressing issues. The power of this handbook lies not just in its careful analysis of what the curriculum says, but also in its excellent exemplification of how teachers are seizing opportunities to explore these issues with their students. The case studies of practice are particularly useful in helping us see what’s possiblein today’s schools. There is something here for everyone: for experienced practitioners there will be insights from other people’s work; and for those just starting out, a wide range of teaching and learning opportunities are carefully set out for scrutiny, evaluation and adaptation”, says Prof William Scott, NAEE Chair of Trustees.

NAEE’s new secondary school curriculum report illustrates how Key Stages 3 and 4 provide numerous opportunities for schools, teachers and children to explore a wide range of the world’s most pressing issues.  This is the latest in a number of reports that NAEE will be publishing from time to time and is freely available to download here.

NAEE’s primary school report illustrates how the new foundation and primary curriculums provide numerous opportunities for schools, teachers and children to explore a wide range of the world’s environmental and sustainability issues.
The report is freely available to download here.

Coastal Zone Canada Conference, July 14-19, 2018

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Coastal Zone Canada 2018, the bienniel conference of the Coastal Zone
Canada Association, will be held from July 14-19, 2018, in beautiful
St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.
The broad theme of the conference is “Seeking Practical Solutions to Real Issues: Communities Adapting
to a Changing World”.
 The Coastal Zone Canada Association expects to attract some 300 coastal zone
practitioners including field scientists, managers, environmental
organizations, policy makers, and government bodies.  Effective
management of complicated coastal zones is founded on efficient
exchange of information among different groups, and education is an
important foundation of that information exchange.  
The CZC18 will have much to offer to environmental educators working in marine
and coastal environments, are you ready to present a work?
Tha Call for abstracts is open here.

Please visit the web site for more information on the conference themes and structure.

Future of Food Journal, call for papers

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Future of Food: Journal for Food, Agriculture and Society is proud to announce the Volume 5. Number 2 (Autumn 2017) of the journal on the theme of  “Food security with equity through social and technological innovations“.  This journal is an open-access journal.
The individual paper can be accessed at this link (Please click the cover page).
The journal is now calling for research papers, reports and book reviews for Volume,6 Number 1 of the journal (Spring 2018), which will focus on the theme of “Healthy ecosystems for/from sustainable agriculture.” Research papers are accepted until the 15th of February, 2018.

Please contact managing  editors for further information.
The journal is indexed by the several institutes including SCOPUS and Emerging Sources Citation Index® – Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics, formerly Thomson Reuters’ IP & Science branch), & United Nations Water.

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