Tag Archive for: COVID19

WEEC2022: “2G” policy for the onsite participation

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Three months remain to the 11th World Environmental Education Congress in Prague.  Despite our hopes, the world still struggles with the global pandemia of COVID-19. In Central Europe, we experience the new wave of this infection. At the same time, we have more reasons for optimism than a year ago. The new vaccines provide a reasonable level of protection against severe illness. Based on the previous experience and the contemporary pandemic speed, we have good reasons to expect the situation to improve by the end of winter.
After consideration, we decided to keep the hybrid form of WEEC as it is planned. You are welcome to participate in either online or onsite forms. You may also use the mix of both worlds – you can register onsite but participate online in plenary sessions or other parts of congress. Please, find the way that works best for you.
For the onsite participation, we adopt the “2G” policy. As a result, we will ask participants to prove that they are either fully vaccinated or have recently recovered from COVID-19. We hope you understand this requirement – we want to make our meeting safe for everyone. We are looking forward to meeting you – either online or in Prague – in March 2022! Keep safe and healthy

11th WEEC: Not sure about COVID and travel? Join us in building bridges online

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The 11th WEEC, as the first in its history, is applying the hybrid conference format. As a result, participants may choose between online and onsite participation. In light of the changing pandemic situation, participants may register either online or onsite and switch between these modes until the end of December 2021.

What does online participation look like?
As an online participant 
⦁ You can actively participate by submitting your presentation or participating without a presentation
⦁ You can choose whether to introduce your presentation in one of the virtual rooms in real-time and get immediate feedback or just upload it on the virtual platform and discuss it on the discussion forum
⦁ You will have access to the virtual platform with all of the ongoing online presentations and workshops, streamed onsite plenary sessions, and recordings of the parallel sessions (both online and onsite)
⦁ You can discuss selected topics with all of the WEEC participants
⦁ You can access the virtual platform up to one year after the closing of WEEC

The online presentation is reasonable if you want to be a part of WEEC but cannot come to Prague. Let’s join online!

Any questions about the online WEEC?
Contact Jan at cincera@mail.muni.cz

Abstract submissions close: 30th November 

Due to the covid’s situation, this time WEEC gives you the chance to choose between online and onsite participation

CALL: Environmental Education experiences at the time of COVID-19

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As educators and environmental educators of the WEEC Network, having overcome these difficult months of lockdown, we feel more than ever the importance of dedicating a focus to teaching methodologies.

For this reason, we are launching a call addressed to all educators and environmental educators: we are looking for testimonials and stories on how the way of working and doing environmental education has changed and what strategies and tools have worked in this period.

Send us your testimony by August 31!

The objective is to activate a comparison on the good practices that emerged, on the methodologies adopted and on the feedback obtained. The testimonies and experiences collected will be shared in the next events of the WEEC Network 2020.

In environmental education, the relationship with nature and outdoor activities are fundamental. How to respond to the paradox that in recent months it has been necessary to do environmental education through a screen at home? Was the opportunity also taken for education in a new and truly interactive use of new technologies? And how can the relationship with nature “at a distance” be maintained?

FILL THE SURVEY: Call EA and covid-19

 

100 Questions in 100 Pages, a free book from Gunter Pauli

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Gunter Pauli, the founder of ZERI (Zero Emission Research and Initiatives) and the Blue Economy, invites everyone to reflect and ask questions, starting with those of his book “100 Questions in 100 Pages”. An invitation to question the origins and implications of this virus and to understand how to overcome the crisis, together, by using confrontation. A declaration of love to stimulate debates and change. The book is freely downloadable from the site in English, French, Italian, Spanish.
Written in less than a month to launch a challenge to all humanity, Gunter Pauli’s book invites you to think, ask questions and reflect, to be able to build a truly better world together, and try to understand how to evolve, how to get out of this crisis and what to do next.
Can radio frequencies wake up viruses that nearly 40% of all adults in the world have in their bodies? Should we cure symptoms or build up defense mechanisms? And why does simply asking questions generate such aggressive attacks? Additionally, what does freedom of speech have to do with health-care policies? How can we use the greatest infrastructure available on earth to reach everyone? What if all that is required is a light bulb? And is there a chance to transform the economy into a happier and healthier one? Here are some of the questions that Pauli asks himself in the book and how to get out of the chaos in which we are.

Journalism Update Course for Sustainability, 100% online

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The Journalism Update Course for Sustainability is organised by CapacitaRSE – a pioneering center for teaching sustainability in Latin America – with the experience of 30 journalists or communicators (bloggers, podcasters or others) active in the field in the Spanish-speaking world.
Participating journalists will be able to review 100% online updated content on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Circular Economy and learn to interpret sustainability instruments such as reports and stock indexes, hand in hand with specialized teachers, between April 6 and 17 2020.

«Policies such as the Sustainable Development Goals govern the current response of the United Nations System to global causes such as the COVID-19 pandemic. We conceived this course as an opportunity to promote sustainable transformation and collective consciousness, a process in which journalists are key agents» says Estefanía Salazar, coordinator of the course.
The course will provide digital signature certification issued by CapacitaRSE in the State of Florida (USA) where it has its regional headquarters.

Form of participation:  4 modules within Google Classroom with two virtual question and answer sessions and delivery of a final report

Registration form and cost: Those interested can apply until April 5, 2020 at this link

Course dates: April 6 to April 17, 2020 (2 weeks)

For more information: Estefanía Salazar – e.salazar@clasesderse.com.ar
Twitter: @CapacitaRSE // Instagram: @cursosderse

From Bhutan with love, a poem for doctors from all over the world

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I follow the news with a heavy heart. I see images of health workers, care-givers, and people in the front-lines and pay my tributes to their courage and sacrifices.
Here is a little tribute to the medical personnel and the brave-hearts around the world.

TS Powdyel

Thank you forever…

Did you ever think…

This would come?

No, no one ever did.

Hippocrates was no diviner

No, not Florence Nightingale either…

This is all you were told:

Life is sacred: Life is precious

Preserve it… honour it… celebrate it…

This is what you hold in your hand today.

But the scourge is all over:

It is here, there

It has exploded everywhere.

And there you are…

Right in the eye of the storm!

Today, you are not a doctor…

No, nor a nurse…

You’re life unto life

Yes, precious life

Unto precious life

Your vital role dissolves with its precious soul today…

When you go in today

Wrapped in your multi-layered PPE

Tight from head to toe

A single thought reigns supreme in your mind:

These lives are in my hand

No matter what lies beyond…

Thank you for the precious lives you save everyday

Putting selfless service before your own dear self

 

Thank you for the hunger and the thirst you put aside

And the mask-scars and the heart-aches that will abide

Even as the pressing call of nature you put on hold…

Thank you forever… God bless you evermore…

We see you take your fight to the end

Till you know you cannot bear it anymore…

We see your drained-out colleague drop on the floor

And cry with you for the battles forever lost.

Heart-broken today for the lives that the virus cost…

Hold on, Doctor… heal on, Sister…

Forge on every front-line hero…

And the brave-hearts behind you…

This battle must be fought and won

And Life has to go on…

 

Thank you for the world…

And, thank you for Life…

The sun will rise again…

Thank you forever…

God bless you evermore…

Covid-19 crisis and the Life-Principle of Learning

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As a teacher, I believe that the first principle of education is the affirmation and celebration of life. Life is precious and every bit worth preserving and honouring. Little wonder, here is the emphatic command of the King Himself on behalf of Life, Milu Rinpoche: ‘Not a single life should be lost to coronavirus’.

The whole world is coming around!

All our teaching and learning will go only so far and no further if this basic principle of education is missing. As unusual as the current situation is, it may provide a welcome opportunity to re-discover the fundamental goal of education – that is Sherig – meaning ‘deep learning’. We will then be able to locate the core purpose of education as it ought to be.

The scourge of the coronavirus has forced education systems around the world to find alternative ways of teaching the students and engaging them meaningfully during these uncertain periods of home-stay while at the same time hoping to ‘cover the sacrosanct syllabus’!

The Ministry of Education has formulated versatile plans and our fellow-teachers are making valiant efforts to marshal technology to reach out to their students. All this is as it ought to be in the given ongoing situation. And, the results, I would like to believe, must match the inputs.

In the unlikely event that current public security interventions warrant extension, an additional option could require the students to explore diverse and original formats to represent their previous year’s or semester’s learning and submit credible samples of work for assessment at the end of the designated period.

Knowledge is power but how knowledge is internalised and represented is success.

This alternative would provide greater diversity in learning and in representing what is learnt, free learning from undue dependence on expensive gadgets especially in disadvantaged areas, relieve teachers to focus on more purposeful support and monitoring, and build greater integrity in learning.

Above all, such alternatives would emphasise depth over breadth, insights over information, quality over quantity, education over qualification, among other advantages.

The intent of Every Village a School: Every Home a Classroom, and Educating for Gross National Happiness initiatives was to pave the way for learning blessed with integrity.

For now though, precious Life is absolute Priority Number 1.

We are all in it together… in our efforts, in prayers, in our hope…

Thakur S Powdyel
Former Minister of Education in Bhutan, Starter of Green School in Bhutan

Coronavirus and EE. Situation, proposals, perspectives: the debate is open

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Environmental Education is in quarantine too.
What are we learning from this crisis? What is the impact of the Covid-19 emergency on several activities? And how can environmental education help address this and other crises? What are the best practices for continuing to do environmental education using the Internet and e-learning? Is it necessary for schools and universities to be more focused on social and ecological sustainability? What are the prospects for the future? What are we going to do when the emergency is over, and the fear has passed? Will everything come back as before? What will have changed for the better or for the worse? Is there a risk in the future of a further reduction in the funds available for environmental education and the Green New Deal?

The WEEC Network opens the debate on these and other questions, to try to better understand the situation of environmental education in all countries in the days of Coronavirus.

Send us news, comments, stories, proposals. We will publish them on the WEEC network website.

Coronavirus Covid-19 Crisis: EE is a fundamental tool to build resilience

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The world environmental education network (WEEC) is close to everyone in these long months who are experiencing painful moments and a situation of social isolation all over the world.

For teachers at schools and universities, the pandemic means that they have to give up their relationship with millions of young students. Online courses are a remedy that cannot replace the educational relationship, and there is a digital divide that increases the disadvantage of people living in socio-economic conditions, thus creating even greater educational poverty.

Measures to tackle the infection also deprive young people and adults of the opportunity to go outdoors, go to natural parks, take advantage of museums, theatres, libraries and other educational opportunities.

For environmental education, all this is a heavy brake: the Coronavirus crisis paralyses all environmental education activities.

At the same time, today the environmental education also has a more significant task. The origin of the pandemic and its impacts, which mainly affect people weakened by a polluted environment and unhealthy lifestyles, remind everyone of the importance of restoring the balance of the planet upset by global warming and the destruction of Nature.

Environmental education has a pivotal role and is a crucial tool to build resilience in the face of disasters and catastrophes, natural or made by humans.