ideas on esd for primary school materials for teachers and the school

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Basics of the program WATER ENERGY WEATHER SOILFOOD WASTES BIODIVERSITY LEARNING BY TOUCHING, SMELLING, HEARING, SEEING, TASTING, WORKING AND DISCUSSING.

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IDEAS ON ESD FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL MATERIALS FOR TEACHERS AND THE SCHOOL A sustainable life-style as a goal for teaching ESD is hard to teach separately. It is to be incorporated in all the subjects. Accent - less theory at this stage but forming the sustainable habits for the rest of childrens lives. Theoretical aspects are to be supported by practice and by personal example. This material gives basic ideas to teachers on the elements of ESD and long-term practical activities for the period of 1-3 grades. Practical work is of high importance. The teacher chooses the appropriate manner, logic and schedule for the lessons. Observations and experiments. Research is to be made in the scientific way (hypothesis, experimenting conditions, objectiveness, recording observations, drawing conclusions and discussing further influences). Cooperate for the purpose of experiments with another classes. Proper equipment is essential for learning! The municipality and the state should pay attention to the basic needs of ESD implementation. The school alone is not able to cope with these tasks. Basics of the program WATER ENERGY WEATHER SOILFOOD WASTES BIODIVERSITY LEARNING BY TOUCHING, SMELLING, HEARING, SEEING, TASTING, WORKING AND DISCUSSING. Water is the source of our life BASICS: Analyze where the drinking water comes to us from and where it then goes to. Do we have much fresh water on Earth? Analyze essence of water for life. Think what is clean water. What water can be used by people? What diseases can be caused by bad water? Research the ways to save water (including also rain water collecting to use later in the garden, etc.). PRACTICE: Draw a simple map on the board to show the school region, the nearest water source and catchment area, where the rainwater runs down. Research water cycle in the nature. Play the game learning water cycle (e.g. Incorporate the subject into mathematics (to calculate the expenses for the water in the household, how much money can be spent and what can be bought with it). Using timer calculate how much water escapes from the tap in a minute. The same experiment can be made for a dripping tap. Calculate how much it makes for 24 hours. Some teams can be organized to check the taps in the school for leakages. A home survey can be made to locate all the taps, water sources and purposes of water usages. Are there any ways to cut down the water usage? What are waterwise rules for home? Weather/Climate BASICS: The climate change subject can be hard to explain at this stage. It maybe interesting to analyze the dinosaurs and their disappearance, as well as influence of climate on the habitat areas. Greenhouse emissions, their sources. Role of forests in biosequestration. Recent floods. Pictures and films. PRACTICE: Observe web-cameras all over the world at a particular time to notice the different climate conditions at the same time. Ask grandparents to tell about the climate changes in the places where they have been living. Are there trends, patterns or one-way changes? Discuss in the class. Wastes BASICS: Talk about visible (plastic bags, garbage, etc.) and invisible pollution (poisons and toxins, oil, fertilizers, etc.) using drawings and photos. Wastes separation why and how? Food decaying. Compost. What can not be flashed into the toilet and why? PRACTICE: Pay attention of the pupils to the drainage city system. Rain water washes down all the garbage and invisible pollutants. Where? A walking tour during the rain to follow the rain streams. Let children in groups design a poster addressing the people to be very attentive with their garbage. If possible, publish them in local newspapers. Every day as an exercise separate the wastes produced by pupils in the class. Food BASICS: Analyze why people need to eat, where our food comes from, why plants grow. Connect this to the ENERGY lessons. PRACTICE: Explore how much energy (according to the scale 1-4) each type of food contains. First children guess and then get right answers. It is wise to compare junk food and healthy organic products. Incorporate the subject into mathematics (to calculate the amount of energy for the age and to sum up the products for one day, to examine the different food packages). Special texts can be read by children, the gaps should be filled with appropriate words. How to make and pack a healthy lunchbox for pupils. The school canteen should support the education with appropriate dishes and products. Soil BASICS: The lesson is connected with FOOD subject. 95% of our food comes from soil (FAO). Soil is alive. Different types of plants use different soil. In order to boost it people can use various tricks to get more harvest from the garden. PRACTICE: The best practice is of course a school garden, but pots for planting is also a good alternative. Experiment with soil types, planting different species in the same soil. Make your own compost and apply it as compost tea. Learn the relations between soil and water and when it is good to water the plants. Biodiversity BASICS: The world is fragile and unique. It is to be respected in the way it naturally functions. PRACTICE: Children take shots of various plant and animal species in the places where they live and go to vacations. They learn about them in the class, classify, put on the walls in the groups. Every pupil can choose a plant or animal species (or choose them at random) and research on them. Every week of the year the class talks about one species, in terms of what it eats, who predates on it, the happy conditions of its life, the threats and what can be done to protect it. The hero of the week can have clothes resembling the appearance of the species or play its behavior. Energy BASICS: Energy is never created or disappear, it only changes. Research all the energy renewable and non-renewable sources. What is clean energy? Analyze modern gadgets that use solar energy, e.g. to charge batteries and telephones. Analyze type of plants that can be also used for fuel. PRACTICE: Make up and fill in energy surveys both for home and school with the help of elder students or parents (sources of energy and purposes of their use in different seasons, and how they can be saved). Name all the possible vehicles that use various sources of energy, including man power. Incorporate the subject into mathematics (e.g. calculations of how much people pay for the energy at home and compare expenses in two variants - wasting energy and saving energy, etc.). An example of the list of questions for the surveys Experience 1. Sustainable trip A one-day hiking tour is organized with the parents and pupils. During the trip pupils discuss the questions of sustainable gathering of plants, picking up berries and mushrooms, equipping camp-sites, behavior in fire-prone territories, wastes handling, types and condition of trees, dry sanitation. The different subjects can be delivered by families. Children take or draw pictures and then at home make their electronic or paper stories with the help of their parents and later on independently. If the trip is made to a beach it can be cleaned together and wastes analyzed. The event can later on be discussed in the class or there can be an exhibition organized in the premises of the school. Experience 2. Visits to a farm The class agrees with a farm engaged in sustainable agriculture to visit it in all the seasons of the year during grades 1-3. The farmers show and tell the pupils about the balance of nutrients, natural fertilizers, the health of the animals, the structure of the farm, the routine of a farmer. Pupils observe different temperatures, precipitation, soil conditions, their influence on animals, crops and plants. During summer if it is possible children can help the farmer with a simple work (plant fruit trees or vegetables, fertilizing, watering, etc.). Experience 3. Planting and growing Planting trees or taking parts in restoring burnt territories. Planting trees or other types of plants on the farm under patronage. To make a school garden. Aquaponic plants. Growing own plants, using natural fertilizers, different amounts of water, sun and many other experimenting conditions. Supporting the hypothesis what plants need in order to grow. Children can be divided into groups in order to support their own hypothesis. Using organic ways of pest control and prevention. Finding out about worms, using them in the gardens. Collecting and sorting out food wastes from the school canteen, composting it. Seed saving practice, soil cultivation, water usage. Celebrating harvest days with the food prepared with school garden plants. Experience 4. Preparing food On usual holidays different classes can invite others in the school to try the food they cooked. There can be thematic occasions as well (an evening of Indian traditional food, basics of African cuisine, etc.). If some parents from the class are of different nationality, they can come and help with preparing the food, explaining the basic ingredients and ways of cooking. Invite a chef keen on learning children and preparing slow food. The experience might get started with choosing the right products and ingredients in the nearby shops and ending with collective tiding up and sorting out garbage. If possible, use plants from the school garden. Experience 5. Christmas. Decorating the school. Collect during the whole year various items from the garbage that can be used for the purpose of decoration, both at home and in the school. Decorating can be made together with the parents. Children decorate the class and the corridors, the playground. After the Christmas period the decorations are removed, sorted out for the purpose of the possible further usage in other school activities or recycling. Tool 1. A camera in childrens hands The camera serves as an instrument in assignments under all trips and subjects (as farm visits, marine life, water, wastes, planting trees, etc.). Children get an assignment to capture a positive event (a wild creature, a plant, a sustainable thing) and a negative event (wrong-handled or polluted area, thrown wastes, etc.). They tell about their shot in the class. Tool 2. 5-minutes lesson When a teacher has suddenly unplanned 5-minutes free time on a usual lesson: Follow-up of a current project Web-camera for the worlds interesting places according to the subjects studied (weather, water level, celebrations, etc.). The web-cameras can be installed at the places of childrens activity (farms, gardens, nearby sea or river, forest, etc.). Tool 3. Forming everyday habits When washing hands and otherwise using water the children are to be instructed how to use the water in a wise way. When leaving the classroom, turn off together the lights. Children are to be motivated to form their dishes during lunch choosing healthy products. Garbage separation. Aiming at abandoning plastics in everyday use. Learning how to buy less (to enable clothes and equipment exchange, to organize flea markets, etc.). General tool. School Green Calendar Possible events celebrating important days in the community of schools: Visual art, theatre and music. Educational events. Excursions to places of celebration (forests, lakes, seas, wetlands, etc.). Sports competitions. Creating symbols for the dates. Special events (e.g. light-off hour). Make your own dates, weeks and months to celebrate special schools events! Example of basic dates: International Day of Worlds Indigenous people World Habitat Day World Food Day World Soil Day World Wetlands Day International Day of Forests Earth hour Earth day International composting awareness week International Day for Biological diversity World Environment Day World Oceans Day Global Wind Day Other dates Resources for ESD THE TASK IS TO BE SOLVED BY AN EQUIPPED TEACHER AND INTERESTED COUNTRY School books are to be sustainably oriented. The new texts are to be introduced for reading, the mathematical tasks are to be based on environmental questions (instead of counting apples the same procedure can go for counting water liters spent for vain). Need to set up a general ESD database resources for the country, region, city. For every teacher it might be hard to support the program for ESD, especially when it implies additional costs. This is the case for certified programs that can be adopted by a state, region, city. They are to deliver tailored materials on the region and how they are to be introduced into the curriculum. The schools take part in the program in the form of certification which raises the status of the school in the community. Sponsors and the state is to take the expenses in connection with realization of the programs. Sources day/campaign-material/infographic/en/day/campaign-material/infographic/en/ endates.htmendates.htm and-resources/games-for-students/and-resources/games-for-students/ change.htmlchange.html