There is no blueprint for schooling for sustainability. This movement, which is growing in school systems across North America and around the world, is characterized by its diversity. The Center for Ecoliteracy has identified some recurring goals and practices, and reasons the movement is important to educators, students, and parents. It has articulated competencies needed for sustainable living, and described the work of a variety of successful schools and programs.
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What Is Schooling for Sustainability?
Through schooling for sustainability, students gain the knowledge, skills, and values essential to sustainable living. Sustainability as understood by the Center for Ecoliteracy is a far richer concept than simply meeting material needs, surviving, or trying to keep a degraded planet from getting worse. A truly sustainable community supports the health and quality of life of present and future generations. It recognizes the need for justice, and for physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural, and spiritual sustenance.
Why It Matters to Educators
Educators involved in schooling for sustainability report that their work takes on added meaning and that their students are often more engaged and perform better. Rather than their workload becoming more of a burden, many find their teaching to be more focused and coherent. More sustainable campuses are also healthier for faculty and staff members. Energy- and resource-efficient campuses reduce costs while benefiting the environment.
Why It Matters to Parents
Schooling for sustainability prepares children for a fast-changing world: one made up of both climate change and the creation of brilliant new eco-designs. It helps them become better students and improves their test scores in many subjects. And it supports student health and effectively promotes healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime.
Exemplary Schools
The Center for Ecoliteracy has identified and supported a number of schools and projects that embody processes and practices for effective education for sustainability. Schools are systems, and they are communities. They are themselves important nodes in the web of institutions that constitutes society. Whatever happens in schools will have profound effects on the rest of society. The most effective schools are often communities that model the traits of sustainable societies.
Competencies
Preparing young people for sustainable living requires educators who can touch and influence the whole student, including his or her values, abilities, and relationship to the natural world. The Center for Ecoliteracy has identified a set of fifteen core competencies that young people need to develop for living in sustainable communities.
© 2004-2012
Center for Ecoliteracy. All rights reserved.
Center for Ecoliteracy. All rights reserved.