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The Field Studies Council Environmental Education Unit (FSCEE) works in the area of environmental education and education for sustainability, looking at practical ways of developing a world that is environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive, by providing advice and resources to schools.
Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue: the United Nations is sponsoring a decade for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) from 2005 to 2014, and in a recent statement, the UK government has announced its intention to develop more ‘sustainable schools’.
With help from Minerva, part of the European education programme Socrates, the aim of our project has been to help school teachers in the participating countries develop innovative and effective approaches to ESD. We’ve done this by creating a highly interactive and resource-rich website available in Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian and English.
The key for us was to devise a structure which was simple, accessible and cheap, but which could grow locally and diversify in the process. It had to be tough and sustainable – to cope with inexperienced users and contributors reliably – and be able to grow beyond the funded period.
Information and communications technology (ICT) projects which are left in the hands of experts are more likely to be expensive, complex, hard to administrate, and have limited accessibility.
With our experienced educational NGO (non-governmental organisation) partners in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, the FSCEE decided from the beginning to go for an open-source content management system, (CMS). In essence, open-source means that no special software licences need to be installed or purchased which saves time and money.
Our CMS allows content to be added or edited from any computer with a browser and an internet connection, without the need for any web-specific expertise. Using this system means project partners are set free to work in their own language and at their own pace but still feel part of a network through the exchange of ideas and materials.
Training was also minimised. After a settling-in period, there was no need to request technical help, understand html (hypertext markup language), or wait for a story, topic, discussion or picture to be uploaded. So far the site has been up 100 per cent which means the system is remarkably robust.
The result is the cooperatively designed and equipped European Field Studies website, efseurope.org, with its ‘family’ of websites, now in five languages with the addition of efsrussia. The site helps people share activities, resources and ideas about education for sustainable development.
It emphasises the latest thinking, moving away from the old ‘nature conservation’ and ‘moral imperative’ themes that feature in so much current environmental education. The outlines of a sustainable world are provided around issues facing the economies and peoples of the world, looking at energy, food, poverty, water, and the challenges of climate change, biodiversity, new technologies and business models.
An example of a featured resource is 'Costing that burger' which is suited to the citizenship curriculum and looks at the real costs of fast food in terms of fossil fuel and water, and provides interesting discussion points.
The ICT element is, however, just a part of the mix. Our major challenge is our audience. Even ‘sustainable’ ICT strategies cannot overcome, by themselves, issues relating to content, and how users see the site in terms of learning.
Users often want to see ‘well-stocked shelves’ of resources and ideas for them to browse and choose. The idea of users sharing ideas via forums or uploading their own ideas is fairly new and rarely well demonstrated. Equally challenging is that, with a 24-hour news and media culture, users always expect to see something new.
They want to see frequent updating of their ‘online supermarket shelf’. What we have found is that we need to engage demanding but still largely passive and insular learners.
As well as acting as a resource for schools, the project aims to provide an opportunity for sharing experiences and ideas between partners in the various host countries. This was one of the many advantages of working collaboratively.
However, there were challenges that we needed to overcome to ensure effective cooperation, such as ‘ownership’, cost, usability and expandability of content. Each partner has at least 25 schools participating in the pilot scheme for the site.
Within the UK team, we included a Bristol-based teacher who is very active in the field of education for sustainable development. His involvement has played a key role in getting UK schools involved.
Dr James Hindson works in the Field Studies Council Environmental Education Unit
Are you interested in working with other European partners on innovative activities concerning the use of open and distance learning (ODL) and information and communication technology (ICT) in education? If so, Minerva offers funding for projects that develop unique innovative tools in the fields of ICT and ODL at all levels of education.
It is part of the Socrates programme, funded by the European Commission. Partnerships usually comprise a range of educational institutions, and can involve schools. For more information, call Julia Stone on 020 7389 4545, e-mail julia.stone@britishcouncil.org or visit the socrates website.
If you’d like more details about the efseurope website ‘family’ approach, contact Dr James Hindson, Field Studies Council Environmental Education, e-mail fscee@field-studies-council.org.
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