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Newsletter and Technical Publications CHAPTER 4. PUBLIC AWARENESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION 4.4. Environmental Education 4.4.1. Education of Children and School Pupils (suite) Example: A Joint Mexican and French Environmental Education Postal Project for Children In November 1996, the Oficina de Comunicacion del Lago, in Mexico, started a project called the "Postal Project". Children in Mexico and France were invited to share their knowledge about water issues and to explain to other children their relationship to water through drawings. The drawings where mailed and, when received in each respective country, were used as a source of new and further information in the educational process, as an element for generating activities. Seventy-four children participated in the pilot project. Forty-four were pupils at the Koala School in Guadalajara (Mexico) and thirty were school children who attended the public library at Marcouville (France) as an extracurricular activity. Guadalajara is the second largest city of Mexico (over five million inhabitants) in the vicinity of the largest lake in Mexico, lake Chapala. The children from Koala School were children from middle-income families, who had already worked on the topic of water in their classrooms. Marcouville is part of the Pontoise community, 40 km from Paris, with a high population of immigrants (80 % of the children in the project were of immigrant origin). The children of Marcouville who participated in the pilot project also knew about water issues from the school. The action was divided into incoming and outgoing activities. These were connected between themselves by an information flow like a communication system acting as a frame for the educational process. The activities became important, not only to themselves, but also in relationship to each other. The income activities: Many workshops were organized building on the information children already had about water. A theater play was initiated and children wrote small stories together about their daily relationship to water. Besides the possibility of using the information that children already had about water, incoming activities gave the opportunity to evaluate the quality of the information. In both cases (Koala school and Marcouville) even if children knew very much about water issues they did not necessarily connected this knowledge to their daily lives. They were more comfortable talking about remote water (for example, they talked about the oceans) than talk about the water they saw every day at home. At the end of the activities the children made drawings explaining their own relationship with water to the other children. Then the drawings were mailed to the children in the other country. Through drawings children described what they like and dislike about water. Issues such as pollution, water living organisms, water sports, etc., came up. Their explanations were recorded on tapes. Outgoing activities: The exchange of drawings made by children acted as a source of motivation, giving new information and ideas for further activities. Outgoing activities were indeed started by the children themselves after they received the drawings. The teacher acted mainly as a coordinator and facilitator. The French children decided to make a book explaining the activity to others. They also displayed the drawings they obtained at the library, and explained them to other children. Finally, they staged a theatre play about water at the community centre house in the neighbourhood. The Mexican children made new drawings and letters about the experience and sent them back to France to continue the communication process. Example: Environmental Education Programmes of Polish Scouting Association, Poland The Polish Scouting Association unites over 400,000 children and youth from all over the country. By organizing vacations for about 200,000 young people, this association has great a opportunity to educate, and through this to create ecological awareness among its members and local inhabitants. For several years the Polish Scouting Association has been initiating activities aimed at nature protection, including following programmes:
In order to realize these types of activities, the Polish Scouting Association organized a competition called "Eco-Camp" in 1995 and 1996. The best ecological camp was the winner. During this action, young people found out how to protect the environment in everyday life. They changed their behaviour and took some pro-ecological practices, including the use of biodegradable detergents, waste segregation etc., as a rule. Example: Polish Environmental Education Program: Clean Vistula River and Coastal Rivers The programme is carried out under the auspices of The Ministry of the Environmental Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry, and the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management. The key element of the program is cooperation of planning and implementation of sustainability programmes established among adult members of the society and the youths. Goals of the programme are:
The programme was developed very intensively for the years 1994-1997. In the beginning, about 117 schools in 28 gminas participated in it. Nowadays, the Programme is carried out in 320 schools in 105 gminas, located in voivodships in the Vistula, Oder, and coastal river basins. The programme engages 110 local authorities, 650 educators, and 6,000 schoolchildren from primary and secondary schools. Also involved are institutions and social organizations, such as regional ecological education centres, scouting organizations, foresters, and administrators of protected areas. The basic tool used for information dissemination and exchange is the bimonthly publication "Nature Watch", addressed to young people, teachers, and nature fans. Also used are folders, water monitoring instructions, and posters. Conferences, seminars and discussion panels are organized. Cooperating within the programme framework the media covers the undertaken activities. The programme is financed by the Ministry and regional and local ecological funds. The "Blue Thumb" Programme is aimed at promotion of water resources protection and is conducted in the whole territory of Poland starting in 1997, in cooperation with NGO organization Water for People from Denver, U.S.A. In the programme, so far, at least 600 educators, media representatives, 3,000 schoolchildren and young people have been participating. Within the programme framework, clubs of "blue thumb" are organized, by schoolchildren in primary and secondary schools for carrying out their own tasks for water resources protection. For dissemination of the programme results, the Bulletin "The Blue Thumb" is issued in Krakow, thanks to the financial assistance of the Clean Water Fund. Example: Czech Republic Experiences on Environmental Public Education - Existing Status Environmental education and information activities focused on the eutrophication issue are generally low on the local level. School children (7 to15 years of age) and even students (16 to 18 years of age) do not learn from where their potable water originates, how and where wastewater is treated, and what consequences the discharged treated wastewater has on the water quality downstream. Unfortunately, biology and ecology are taught on general level. Those teachers, who are deeply interested and motivated to provide relevant information, do not have sources of that information or do not know where to get them.
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