Project work 11

Evaluation of materials Leon Mak (9) 12s06i Source of secondary material Title: Rising to the challenge: Education for sustainability in Australia Author: Daniella Tilbury Identification of source: Australian journal for Environmental Education (AJEE) www.aaee.org.au/docs/AJEE/Tilbury.pdf Date of publication: 2004 Reliability of material Daniella Tilbury has expertise on Environmental Education as a professor of sustainability and a Marie Curie fellow in ESD at the University of Gloucestershire. She oversees the new IRIS1 and its recently established United NationsUniversity RCE2 for ESD3.
Tilbury s Phd research was the first to look at institutional development for sustainability within higher education, and has since received many awards4 for research on ESD. Her deep involvement with various issues and organization5 dealing with EE6 show that her opinion is highly valued. The paper summarizes the status, needs and innovations of ESD at the national level in Australia, and since it is targeted to educators in general, it provides valuable advice on what is lacking and what can be learnt from ESD in Australia. Although it was published in 2004, it is still highly relevant as it documents various strategies an makes d references to important studies, past and present that reviewed EE approaches in Australia, providing a valuable perspective on the principles, rationale and subsequent effectiveness of the strategies. The AJEE is an internationally referred journal published annually by AAEE7, a professional body of environmental educators who review the journal entries, which makes their work more credible.

1. International Research Institute in Sustainability 2. Regional Centre of Expertise 3. ESD: Education for Sustainability Development 4. Macquarie Innovation Award for research (Australia 2007) and a Marie Curie Research Fellowship (European Commi ssion 2009). She was the winner of the 2010 Green Gown Award for her work in ESD (UK) 5. She is Chair of the UN s Global Monitoring and Evaluation Expert s Group which advises on the assessment of global progress during the UN decade in ESD. In this capacity she has informed the development of UNESCO s First Global Report in ESD. She le d the UNESCO-IUCN Asia Pacific ESD Indicators Project and is a member of the UNECE Expert Group on ESD Competences. 6. EE: Environmental Education. EfS: Education for sustainability. The terms ESD, EE, and Efs are often used interchangeably 7. AAEE: Australian Association for Environmental Education

Relevance of material Tilbury claims that the ESD in Australia is present in the curriculum, but remains marginalized in practice. Her view is supported by a research study commissioned by the Australian Federal Government8, which found the formal education sector most resistant to change towards sustainability.Thus we looked for ways to integrate our solutions into the curriculum to prevent them from being marginalized.
With that aim in mind, our group offered suggestions to change the curriculum rather than suggesting disjointed approaches. We wanted to complement existing school programs, so we suggested that other than having teachers educate students during civics lessons, that there could be environmental monitors that they can relate to and environmental agents who reward students who recycle to directly involve them in green policies. Tilbury recognized the interactive UNESCO Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future CD Rom program produced by ACTS9 which targeted teacher education as one of the key innovations in ESD as it went beyond the norm of greening the campus. The modules were designed to and enhance teachers understanding and skills on EE and emphasized an interdisciplinary approach10 that improves students learning experiences. Thus we wanted to find ways to improve the teaching of EE so that students will have genuine interest in the green policies. Unlike ACTS, RI teachers do not teach at postgraduate level. Hence, in view of ACTS extension to teacher education, we suggested that on top of the traditional way of educating through classes such as civics lessons, we could have joint projects or competitions as they involve both staff and students, so that there is more interaction between them, and teachers can use this opportunity to mentor and educate students. Tilbury considered the most significant initiative to bethe Sustainable Schools Program11, as it featured how fragmented approaches were integrated to EE into a holistic program with measurable ou tcomes. Its success and growth issupported by the fact that Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland are now involved in developing this initiative. Thus we looked forways to integrate the existing approaches with the overall Green Raffles Theme. We wanted to improve on the existing feedback channels in school, so in addition to the proposed intra school dialogue and feedback sessions, we proposed using social media platform Facebook to further improve the communication among student. During an interview12 we conducted with Mr. Han Chin Juan, he agreed that some students were apathetic about the school s green practices, although there were student initiatives. In view of this, we felt that our proposed solution could include ways to leverage on these student initiatives, so we could leverage and even complementother school initiatives like Team Raffles, to publicize these initiatives, initiate discussions and receive feedback. (650 words)
8. Australian Federal Government commissione d a research study (Tilbury, Coleman & Garlick, 2004c) which reviewed environmental education in the formal education sector and its contribution to sustainability in Australia 10The Action Research for Sustainable Development: Change in Curriculum and Gra duate Skills towards Sustainability (ACTS) is a pilot project managed by Macquarie University, Sydney and funded jointly by the Australian Federal Government Macquarie University 10. UNESCO s Teaching and Learning for a Sustainable Future CD-ROM contains modules that are designed to: enhance teachers understanding, practical skills, and methods for integrating sustainable developm ent themes into the curriculum (Malone et al., 2004) The interview conducted with Mr. Han Chin Juan, Deputy Head of the Estate department 11. The program helps staff and students implement efficiencies in a school s resource consumption and impact on biodiversity , also encouraging partnerships with the local community and private sector. 12. The interview was conducted with Mr. Han Chin Juan, Deputy Head of Estate department, on July 20 at 1:30 p.m. Estate office