Sustainable Education and Perspectives

Ecological education is the knowledge or we can say it is a study about the Environment. This study is related to the methods to prevent the environment from degradation. Ecological education is capable of solving various problems related to the environment by collecting data for its solution, by improving the methods of farming and by using modern technologies which help them to decrease the production of waste.

Teaching sustainable perspective is valuable in the today’s world. It is very important for an education to be ecologised. It helps in exploring various ecological issues in schools or any other communities. It helps in reshaping the interest and thinking of the students as well as adults to understand the value of a sustainable environment. With the help of this education everybody came to know about various issues related to the environment. By making this subject compulsory students came to know about the endangered species, the importance of plants and forests in their lives and about various problems related to water resources, etc. Ecosystems are changing at a high speed due to various human activities. Ecological education helps in supporting the development related to the Ecological and sustainable environment.

Ecological Education also helps everybody to understand easily about the aspects necessary to maintain the environment on the planet. It also helps in understanding the tools, or we can say the resources required in maintenance task. The imaginary environment created by the educators helps students to easily understand the complete process and it also creates an emotional touch in the students’ mind. In today’s world, the nature is being affected by various human activities such as pollution from industries, pollution from vehicles, waste produced, chemical pollution, etc. Government of the country should make some strict policies for the sake of the nature. It is the responsibility of the government to make important changes to their policies from time to time and if anyone doesn’t follow or performs according to their policies than, government needs to take some strict action against them. The people of the country should also follow those policies and they should also keep on working for the improvement of the environment. They should show an interest in the implementation of the ecological education. Parents should participate actively with their children in the various communities working for a sustainable future continuously. Everybody should keep on trying to search new ideas and resources which can provide us a good environment (Hautecoeur, 2000). 

Implementing the environmental education, a method was introduced in Australia for creating a network on ecological education, and education about sustainability in the schools. Teachers in various schools started supporting a project named as “Environment and school Initiatives”, which was introduced for promoting and integrating the development of individual schools. With the help of regional network’s various attempts was made for the successful implementation of this project in the federal states of the country. Schools in the Australia are progressing day by day in educating the students about environmental practices. Progress in the environmental studies mainly depends upon the support of parents, teachers and the community.

In Australia many communities are working on these types of projects, one of them is “Stephanie Alexander kitchen garden foundation” (Educationhq Australia, 2016). The Australian government has developed Australian sustainable school initiatives in the various territories of the country, for enhancing the ecological education. More than three thousand schools are actively participating in the Australian sustainable school initiatives (Smith & Williams, 1999). Australian sustainable school initiatives were designed for supporting the schools, while providing them latest resources and it also provides ideas to the staff for making schools more sustainable. Australian sustainable school initiatives also help in incorporating sustainability into the curriculum and policies of the school. It also plays an important role in the involvement of the parents and the communities in various projects related to sustainability (General Information, News, 2012).

A benefit of ecological education is that it connects the people with nature. It provides the people an opportunity of connecting themselves with the natural environment around the globe. It creates a feeling of love and comfort in them (Guardian Angels Primary School, 2016). This is the starting stage of environmental education in Australia, which one of the many other international programs in attaining various plans into consideration related to sustainability actions. No other environmental programs or plans can compare the implementation and planning of Australian sustainable schools initiative. The main aim of Australian sustainable schools initiative is to focus on issues related to waste production, energy and water. The Australian sustainable schools initiative also works on political, economical and social issues related to environmental education. Habitat Heroes is one of the various global connections, which connect one kid with the other kid throughout the world. It is an imaginary world and the main purpose of this type of global connection is to focus on students of a primary school. This global connection helps them to share their ideas related to the planet with each other. It also provides education to the students by entertaining them with the help of environmental activities and games.

To attain a sustainable future a project named climate quilt was introduced by this global connection, which has motivated the students worldwide to make a pledge on patches of recycled products. It has also motivated them to bring small changes in their lives for the sake of the natural environment. Roots and Shoots is the other network, which provides various ideas and resources by online method to the schools existing in any part of the world. The uniqueness of this global connection is that the schools working under their considerations have become a part of the global team. Some problems are being created by the environmental education prepared by the government bodies of the country.

Teachers are becoming aware of the problems and are continuously working on solutions to the problems. Teachers of the environmental studies are facing many difficulties in the implementation of sustainability. This type of problem is mainly generated due to national curriculum which is responsible for the separation of the basics. Teachers play an important part in creating an interest among the students for the environmental studies.

Sustainability is being achieved with the help of various institutes working in the whole country and one of them is “ARIES” (ARIES News, 2016). ARIES (Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability) keeps on researching about the ways to make the people aware about sustainability and to change the living style of the people. Their main task is to look all the aspects related to the environment. One of the many aspects is related to the training of the teachers, so they also provide training to the teachers for implementing sustainability in the education easily. Their study has also said that the involvement of parents and communities is very important for a successful implementation of sustainability for educating the students (Karena, Environmental education in Australian schools, 2010). For a sustainable future the culture of school and home needs to reflect various effects of sustainability. To gain the basic knowledge about the environment, students should start practicing at their own place. It is necessary for a student to be practical and perform various experiments so that they can easily get attached to the nature. A successful environmental plan is that which is connected to various communities working for the environment. Various types of resources are also required for its proper working. Various human activities are responsible for using the resources and producing a lot of waste. It is very necessary to measure the quantitative factors of an environment around us, because then only it can meet the requirements of the growing population day by day. Footprint basics also help in calculating the value of pressure being created by human activities (Global Footprint Network, 2016). The measurement related to the supply of and demand on nature is calculated by ecological footprint. In the supply phase various measurements related to land covered by forests, cropland, fisheries and pastures are being taken into consideration. The area required to provide humans a large number of renewable resources is calculated or measured by ecological footprint. Various infrastructures being used by humans are covering a large area of productive land, which is also included in the whole calculation. By the measurements of various human activities being performed by humans, we can also say that by calculating the footprints of the humans, pressure on the planet can be easily measured. It helps us to manage various assets related to environment easily and to take some strict & necessary action for the sake of the environment. 

World commission on environment and development introduced a new term known as Sustainable development (Council on Foreign Relations, 1987). The main aim of world commission was to find out the practical solutions to the problems related to the environment being faced by the globe. World commission on environment and development is mainly dependent on three factors which are to re-examine, to propose and the third factor is to raise. According to these three factors, world commission firstly examines all the issues related to the environment and then formulates various ideas for dealing with those issues. In the second step, the world commission proposes international cooperation to overcome these issues due which various policies are changed according to the need. In the third step which is the last and final step of world commission, their main focus is on increasing the level of understanding and actions committed by an individual, by the government, institutes, communities, etc. to ensure that the development is sustainable World commission on environment and development also focuses on some important tasks which are a number of resources being used by a number of humans, industries, securities related to food products, energy produced and consumed, and degradation of the environment. People of all the ages are being focused on the sustainable future due to the education provided to them on sustainability (Center for Ecoliteracy, 2016). Education for sustainable development has provided people’s with various tools and technologies to make them understand easily about the important changes required in the environment in which they are living. Education for sustainability helps the educators all over the world in promoting various ideas and vision to the people related to the environment. They also provide various types of training to the tutors from time to time and they also provide them various types of online help so that they can connect with each other, can communicate with each other, can share each other ideas easily and can work together for the sake of the nature. For a sustainable environment a large number of institutes, schools, and communities are working for a very long time all over the world. Government of the various countries is continuously making efforts for a sustainable future by making the required changes in their policies. Various stakeholders must support the reorienting of the education for a sustainable development (Williams, 1998).

Sustainable and ecologised environment can be achieved through various techniques. Latest to latest techniques can be achieved when we get connected to such communities those who are working for it. Let us take an example UNESCO. UNESCO plays an important role in the development of a sustainable future. Firstly the UNESCO promotes the decade and secondly, it implements the education of sustainable development. To achieve its various goals related to sustainability it keeps on improving the quality of education which helps in increasing the importance of a sustainable future among the people of the country (UNESCO, 2002). The help of the government, communities, schools and the media is very important in the implementation of education for sustainable development. An opportunity is being offered by the decade to the UNESCO and to the various communities working with it for a better future of the humans living on the Planet.  There are various benefits to every human on the planet to become eco-literate. If the educators become eco-literate than they can provide students a variety of opportunities to learn the importance of the environment around them in which they are living. They can motivate the students and develop an interest among them for living sustainably in a sustainable environment. Teachers can make them understand that independence of plants, animals and many other living things on the planet through which students got interconnected to the environment (UNESCO, 2002). With all this process students can actively participate in the various communities working for a sustainable future. Teachers can tell students about the various bad and good impacts of human activities on the environment. With this they need to know about the various methods which can heal those bad impacts. By the help of ecological education one can understand the importance of nature now and in the future. Teachers can create a virtual environment which makes invisible impacts visible, so that students can easily understand about a sustainable environment and helps in creating the environment sustainable in which they are living. This can help everybody in assuming that improving the quality of life by improving the environment is the main motive. Due to all these types of practices everybody will start working for the environment and they will adopt various systems to prevent the nature rather than to destroy it (Judson, 2010).

Ecologising education is important because it helps in attaining a sustainable environment in which we are living. Ecological education provides us a large number of methods and techniques by the use of which we can easily attain a sustainable environment at present and for the future. Eco-literacy provides us the knowledge about the various latest tools being used for the betterment of the nature and it also provides us the description about the usage of those tools and techniques. If the people of the country are not participating actively in the various activities related to the environment than this will leads to various disadvantages to the environment. Education about the environment needs a deep study otherwise it can cause various harms to the nature. If education related to the environment is given to the students from primary classes than they can easily get connected to the nature. Eco-literacy is very important for the educators also because if the educators will have a complete knowledge about the environment, then only they can make a successful plan for achieving various targets related to the environment and for the benefit of the nature.

Bibliography

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