Being a role model is definitely an element of educating for sustainability

Should teachers be role models?

I created this video as part of my social media course but I have tried to capture how my student's behaviour reflect mine. Is this role modelling? We can educate children to live sustainably by living that life ourselves. Have a look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO5L3ZWa7kU&feature=player_embedded#!

I respect

View my class video. My students in grade 2 created a song to promote the IRESPECT values of the school
http://youtu.be/hWwCG0Xfflk

Love for the home

Children are experts at creating visions of places they've seen only in their imagination- places made real by the act of creation. Imagine what they could do when they are exposed to wonder and not catastrophe.

In recent years environmental education has too often focused on environmental problems and crisis such as pollution and species extinction. David Sobel says, "emphasizing environmental problems with children, especially young ones, can leave them feeling disempowered and hopeless about the state of the world and their ability to affect it". It is so true, I believe that if children can learn to love a place or their connection with mother Earth, they will naturally grow up to take care of her.

Have a look at http://www.riverofwords.org an organization called RIVERS OF WORDS (ROW) founded by Pamela Michael which practices place-based learning by inviting children to use the arts to explore and express their understanding of and connections to their home places. People at ROW believe that children who come to understand and to love their home places will grow into engaged, effective citizens committed to preserving those places.

I completely Agree:)

Reflections - A poem by 11 year old Lindsay Ryder

'Reflections' -- LINDSAY RYDER, age 11, 1999 Rivers of Words finalist

Sometimes,

When the mountains

reflect on rivers,

you can find out things

you never knew before.

There are flowers up there,

rocks like clouds,

A little snow becomes a creek and grows into a river.

 

Consider this story - Power of the Mangroves

Consider this: A story of The Crying Engineer

 Janine Benyus tells a poignant story illustrating how schools have focused on what humans can do with technology while ignoring how to learn from nature’s technology.

I had gone to the Galapagos. One of the perks of this job as a biologist is that we do our workshops in amazing places where there are lots and lots of habitat types to expose architects, designers, engineers—the people who make everything that you’re sitting on—who make our world…

I had taken this group of waste-water engineers to the Galapagos.

They said, “Why are we here?”

I asked them, “What do you do?” and they said, “We filter.” And I said let’s go snorkelling because everything in the ocean basically is filtering salt out of the water. Everything lives on freshwater. Everything [in ocean] lives in salt water but has fresh water within it including plants like mangroves. They’re filtering; they’re filtering mechanisms.

So one day I came upon this guy Paul, this engineer, this very reserved guy and he was crying. He was looking at a mangrove plant crying, standing there, the tears coming down his eyes.

And I said, “What’s going on?” And he said, “Why have I never learned in all of my education about mangroves? Why don’t I know or have ever considered that these guys are a solar-powered desalination plant? They have their roots in salt water and are living on freshwater.”

He said, “We use 900 pounds per square inch to force water against a membrane to get salt out of it and we wonder why it clogs. And this is silent, solar powered, desalination.”

Engineers are trying to make tools for living–technology. Nature has technologies too!

Sustainable Development and Energy

Since “Sustainability” is such an important topic, let's talk about it from various perspectives. I am touching on the topic of Sustainable Development and Energy

Smil (1994) has argued convincingly that a direct correlation between changes in energy use – both source and converters – and advances in human well-being is one of the dominant features of human history. Although perennial debates linger about precise definitions of sustainable development, there is increasing agreement amongst scholars and practitioners that sustainable development policy relates to three critical elements that need to be treated together: economic, social and environmental.

Energy is central to any discussion of sustainable development because it is central to all three dimensions. In terms of the economic dimension of sustainable development, energy is clearly an important motor of macroeconomic growth. In terms of the environmental dimension, conventional energy sources are major sources of environmental stress at global as well as local levels. In terms of the social dimension, energy is a prerequisite for the fulfillment of many basic human needs and services, and inequities in energy provision and quality often manifest themselves as issues of social justice.

Successive environmental summits at Stockholm (1972), Rio de Janeiro (1992) and Johannesburg (2002) show an evolving agenda, depicted in the diagram below, where energy has received increasing prominence at these meetings and become more firmly rooted in the framework of sustainable development

Reference

Cleveland, C.J., Najam, A.: 2003, ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL SUMMITS: AN EVOLVING AGENDA

Sustainability

SUSTAINABILITY

Consider this: Quite simply, we have invented a new ecology, one in which, to an ever-increasing extent, all the resources of the world that previously nurtured many millions of species, are channelled toward just one. - Colin Tudge                         

           

 The word sustainability is derived from the Latin sustinere (sus, up; tenere, to hold). Some meanings from the dictionaries for sustain are  “maintain",  "support", or "endure”. We can consider sustainability at a number of different levels, including the individual, a community, an organization, or a planet. It reminds us of our responsibility to pass on to our children and grandchildren a world with as many opportunities as the ones we inherited. The most popular definition of sustainability can be traced to a 1987 UN conference. It defined sustainability as:

 "Meet our present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs". (WECD, 1987).

 

We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. While it has been commercially profitable for enterprises to use more natural resources and employing fewer people, in the 21st century we'll have to use fewer natural resources while employing more people.  21st century well-being will require the nurturing and valuing of: Natural, Cultural, and Human capital. Isn't it true that all wealth is ultimately, a product of a healthy environment!

As Fritjof Capra states, "Living sustainably means recognizing that we are inseparable part of the entire web of life, of nonhuman and human communities, and that enhancing the dignity and sustainability of any one community will enhance all the others" (Bioneers Conference workshop, 2003)

I found this animated video on sustainability relevant to the topic of discussion: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5NiTN0chj0