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This Teacher Education thematic cluster includes flagship projects with partners across Africa and the globe, focused on developing ESD in policy, curriculum and teacher development. This thematic cluster includes current and also recently finalised projects that were led by the Environmental Learning Research Centre (ELRC).
Projects include:
SUSTAINABILITY STARTS WITH TEACHERS
Sustainability Starts with Teachers is a flagship UNESCO funded capacity-building programme for teacher educators on Education for Sustainable Development in Southern Africa, that is led by the Environmental Learning Research Centre, at Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网.
Teacher educators from Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), Primary and Secondary Education, and Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) from 11 countries are involved.
Through Teacher Education Change Projects, teacher educators and student teachers learn valuable lessons which contribute to policy engagement and change, addressing global, regional and national sustainability challenges.
The Sustainability Starts with Teachers programme supports teacher educators to prepare future teachers for teaching sustainability across the curriculum, using a whole-school approach which involves the entire school community and facilities in sustainability practices.
FUNDISA FOR CHANGE
Fundisa for Change is a collaborative national programme formed specifically to enhance transformative environmental learning through teacher education. Established as a partnership programme involving all of South Africa’s major environmental organisations (state, para-statal and NGO), which have an interest in teacher education, the Fundisa for Change programmme aims to combine sector efforts to strengthen systemic impact. Its core objective is to strengthen teaching of environmental concepts and transformative environmental learning in schools. It does this through focusing on strengthening capacity in South Africa’s teacher education institutions, and major partners involved in teacher development, as these are ‘catalytic institutions’ with potential long-term impact on the education and training of South African teachers.
Rhodes 老虎机游戏_pt老虎机-平台*官网 is coordinating the implementation of the Fundisa for Change training programme for teachers and subject advisors (also known as curriculum advisors/implementers), with the Fundisa for Change network partners. The training makes use of a cluster model and the Fundisa for Change teacher education materials. These materials have been collaboratively developed within the Fundisa for Change Teacher Education Programme, and are specifically designed for training teachers and subject advisors to improve environmental content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge and assessment practice as per the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) requirements.
The Fundisa for Change programme was officially launched in February 2014 by the then Deputy Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Ms Rejoice Mabudafhasi, MP, at Emperor’s Palace, Ekurhuleni, Gauteng.
Funding for Fundisa for Change activities has come from various sources, including Murray & Roberts, GIZ, the Lewis Foundation and the Department of Environmental Affairs.
In addition, a multi-institutional Fundisa for Change Research Programme funded by the National Research Fund (NRF) was launched in 2014 for a period of three years (2014 – 2016). Over 10 Masters Scholars and 3 PhDs are engaged in Fundisa for Change research.
Fundisa for Change Executive Summary
HAND-PRINT CARE LEARNING NETWORK
Supporting teacher educators and teachers in introducing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the classroom, a set of educational resources have been developed under this initiative. These resources have emerged from collective experiences to develop a pedagogy that carries the spirit of the “new social contract for education” (UNESCO), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the learnings and experiences from the work during the UN Decade on ESD.
The Handprint CARE educational resources have been developed with the support of the German government through Engagement Global with the Centre for Environmental Education, Ahmedabad convening an action-learning process with individuals and working groups in Mexico, India, Germany and South Africa.
E-LEARNING AS A MEDIATING TOOL FOR TEACHER EDUCATORS
This research focused on the design and development of an elearning mediation tool for a teacher education professional learning programme. The interest of the teacher education professional learning programme, named 'Sustainability Starts with Teachers' (www.sustainabilityteachers.org) was to support teacher educators across 11 southern African countries to develop situated 'Change Projects' that integrate aspects of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into teacher education practice. A situated 'Change Project' in the SST programme means a project that develops or transforms curriculum, pedagogy, sustainability practices, engages communities in sustainability-oriented practices, or which transforms policy in teacher education institutions. Our inquiry focus was on how to approach the design and development of an online mediating tool(s) for interactive, situated learning that can support sustainability practices and engagement of teacher educators at a local level while learning together with others across national borders.
Downloadable E-Learning as a Mediating Tool Research Summary
ECO SCHOOLS: MAKANDA NODE
Eco-Schools Makana node is a historic project that consisted of between 7 -15 schools from the Makana area.
These Makana schools have engaged in a number of ongoing environmental projects over the years, including recycling, green business, nutrition and medicinal school gardens, water and sanitation projects and many more.
Teachers in the node meet once a month to engage in a special series of eco-schools workshops, designed to support the environmental projects teachers are working on, and introduce them to new environmental knowledge and project ideas. Throughout the rest of the year, they select special school-related projects to work on with their learners. Our learners include pre-school through high school learners, as well as learners with disabilities.
The node is also supported by a large number of Makana organisations, who contribute to the school projects in various ways, on a school to school basis.
The Eco-Schools programme is an international programme of the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) that was developed to support environmental learning in the classroom. The programme is active in 51 countries around the world and was implemented in South Africa in 2003 by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA) The programme is aimed at supporting environmental learning within the school curriculum, and action-taking around environmental sustainability in schools and their surrounding communities.
Since 2003 more than 10 229 schools across all nine provinces have participated on the WESSA Eco-Schools programme, of which over 6 000 have sustained their environmental projects for between 3 and 12 years. The national programme involves more than 500 000 learners and 40 000 teachers. WESSA Eco-Schools accredits schools that make a commitment to continuously improve their school’s environmental performance through awarding an international eco-schools symbol of achievement, represented by an Eco-Schools flag.
Last Modified: Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:52:08 SAST
