Features
Schools turning communities green How feasible and how pragmatic is it to be an eco-school, asks Nicole Andreou It is around two years since the Eco-Schools Head Office launched its project for international schools in countries which have no licensed Eco-Schools organisation. EcoSchools, a global programme for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), has been around for almost 25 years – during which its proponents have relentlessly encouraged children and youth to engage in and with their environment. Eco-Schools runs in kindergarten, primary, secondary, and third level education institutions across five continents. The programme is owned by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation with member organisations in 73 countries. It is based on the Whole Institutional Approach, and aims at involving the community at large. The Whole-School Approach suggests that any environmental concern addressed in the school curriculum should be reflected in everyday non-formal Winter
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curriculum practices (Shallcross, 2003). This figure shows the framework applied to achieve this approach.
Figure 1: The five strands of the Whole-School Approach (Shallcross, 2003)
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