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UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development
To foster Education for Sustainable Development the UN has proclaimed the World Decade on ESD from 2005-2014. For these ten years, the UN and its members are running and supporting projects involving sustainable development, the members are to integrate Education for Sustainable Development in their national educational concepts and a host of conferences are to be held.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
"Empowers learners with knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to take informed decisions and make responsible actions for environmental integrity, economic viability and a just society."
UNESCO.
- Education for Sustainable Development Goals Learning Objectives UNESCO
Addressing Competences to Act
ESD empowers people to foster sustainable development. Even though the background is theoretical, the practical part of Education for Sustainable Development is very concrete. At its heart, it is focused on providing people not only with knowledge but with the competencies to act. On a practical level, Education for Sustainable Development includes many didactical principles and methods from environmental education or civic education.
Sustainable Development – a New Idea?
The idea of Sustainable Development has its origins in forestry and fishery. European authorities and people in the 18th century faced a timber shortage and developed ideas as to how to deal with this problem, like the mining officer Carl von Carlowitz. In 1713, he realized that most trees in his part of Germany had been cut down to build wooden constructions for mines and to create fields for agriculture. The forests could not recover quickly enough and soon there would be no trees left. Grasping the implications of this situation, he made a plea for sustainability: Only as many trees should be cut down as could then re-grow to replace them.
About 250 years later, the 1970s environmentalists’ movement expanded the idea of Sustainable Development to other fields of human life. One important milestone was the book The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome, which reflected on the increase in world population, growth of economy, and environment pollution on a global level. In 1987, the UN’s Brundtland Commission published its report Our Common Future.
This opened the discussion to global politics and wider audiences. Another important milestone was the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio (1992) with ideas about implementing Sustainable Development on the local level (local agenda 21) and through Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Further UN milestones have included the Millennium Declaration to reduce poverty and foster education and cooperation between rich and poor countries (2000), as well as the climate conferences (COP) in the follow-up of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change which was the result of the Earth Summit in in Rio de Janeiro (1992) - e.g. in Kyoto (1997), Montreal (2005), Durban (2012) or Paris (2015).
Materials: Education for Sustainable Development/ Global Learning
GreenComp
The European sustainability competence framework
DownloadHow to Engage Citizens with the Sustainable Development Goals
Inspiration, tools and cases by Finnish Development NGOs Fingo
PDFSustainability and Bildung
Created in European Association for the Education of Adult's Bildung project
PDFHandbook: Sustainable Entrepreneurship
Non-formal education methods collected in the project Growing Green by Fora Copenhagen.
DownloadGlobal Citizenship Education
Wintersteiner, Grobbauer, Diendorfer, Reitmair-Juárez
Citizenship Education for Globalizing Societies
DownloadSix Steps to Global Citizenship
A Guide for Youth Workers, Youth Leaders and Trainers
DownloadGlobal Youth Work
Allen, Dwyer
Activities for Global Citizenship
DownloadThe Everyday Beyond
European, international and global dimensions of learning processes.
DownloadSherpa Tools
Polish-German Youth office's online tools for Education for Sustainable Development in German and Polish
WebEnvironment and Civil Involvement
How Can We Connect Education for Sustainable Development and Active Citizenship Empowerment? DownloadTeaching & Learning for a Sustainable Future
UNESCO Toolbox WebYouth Xchange towards sustainable lifestyles
UNEP and UNESCO Toolbox WebGlobal Education Guidelines
Concepts and methodologies on global education for educators and policy makers of the Council of Europe DownloadGlobal Citizenship Education
Topics and Learning Objective by UNESCO
DownloadEducation for Sustainable Development Learning Goals
UNESCO's learning goals on ESDPDFPISA Global Competence Framework
OECD's Global Competence Model PDFT-KIT 13 - Sustainability and youth work
E. Keen, J. Pinkeviciute, A. Hayes, A. Berecz, B. Akyüz for CoE/EUC Download
References
- Arpine Galfayan, Sebastian Wehrsig, Nils-Eyk Zimmermann: Environment and Civil Involvement; How Can We Connect Sustainable Development Education and Active Citizenship Empowerment? ISBN 978-3-944012-01-8 Online