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Opportunities, challenges and Opportunities, challenges and barriers for extracurricular climate barriers for extracurricular climate change and energy education in change and energy education in Romanian schoolsRomanian schools

Comenius Project “Changing with the Climate” Bucharest, February 22nd 2012

Greenitiative in a nutshellGreenitiative in a nutshell

•Eco education for children and youth

•Sustainable development of our communities

•Green building and promotion of clean energy

Why we started all this?Why we started all this?

© Wallace Broecker, California Academy of Sciences Museum

Our projectsOur projects

The Age of Clean Energy Campaign” (project included in the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign of the European Commission)

“Be Green! Be Selective with Your Waste!”, “Separate Waste Collection at International British School of Bucharest” and “Eco leadership for Nicolae Iorga College”, pilot projects offering support for schools interested in implementing separate collection of waste systems

“Terra Our Only Home”, climate change and energy sustainability awareness programme developed with Bucharest School Inspectorate and UN Information Center in 15 schools from Bucharest

“Eselnita on the Map of Sustainable Development”, a SD programme for rural communities and local stakeholders

“A Green Day in Mogoşoaia”, a series of workshops and events focusing on promoting green building and green living in Romania

““Terra, Terra, OOur ur OOnly nly HHome”ome”

•Educational project originally inspired by Al Gore’s activity as a climate change campaigner

•Grass-root activities in schools for creating awareness and behaviour change on climate issues

•Involving the local authorities in order to make significant changes in schools

ReResultssults

• Creating a platform of communication between Greenitiative 15 schools (Terra coordinators yahoogroup)

• Developing an educational kit on the topic of sustainability and climate change, adapted for 3 age groups

• Direct involvement of 5500+ students and 200+ teachers• Students and teachers have identified energy efficiency

measures specific to each school• 7 schools have already implemented at least one energy

efficiency or sustainability measure• One school won an international prize with a project

based on implementing sustainability measures• Dissemination of project message to other schools in

Romania• A framework of cooperation between the public sector,

the private sector and the non-profit sector

ParticipantsParticipants

School Inspectorate Bucharest and 15 schools, high schools and vocational schools from Bucharest: Şcoala Europeană, Şcoala nr. 179, Colegiul Naţional „Ion Neculce”, Colegiul National „Spiru Haret” , Liceul Teoretic „C.A. Rosetti”, Colegiul Tehnic „Traian”, Colegiul National „George Coşbuc” Colegiul Naţional „Matei Basarab”, Şcoala nr. 75 „Leonardo da Vinci, Colegiul Naţional „Gheorghe Şincai”, Colegiul Naţional „Ion Creangă”, Colegiul Naţional „Gheorghe Lazăr”, Colegiul Economic Viilor, Colegiul National „Elena Cuza” , Şcoala nr. 279

How we pledged to support How we pledged to support Changing with the Climate NetworkChanging with the Climate Network

• Informing the schools/classes how to implement specific projects related to reducing their carbon footprint

• Teaming with ICI to organize an event during the project at our headquarters near Bucharest where the students and their teachers could see energy efficiency measures and renewables at work in two green buildings, a home and an office

• Promoting the project within a network of teachers we created in the last 3-4 years of activity

Opportunities for climate change Opportunities for climate change and energy education in Romanian and energy education in Romanian schools (1)schools (1)

• The educational system is open to working with NGOs in extracurricular projects

• Many schools and teachers take part in European projects (Eco Schools, European Schools for a Living Planet, Comenius, Intelligent Energy Europe, Grundtvig ,etc.) and become more interested in climate change education

•Because the curricular education on these topics is very rare, there is a strong interest of teachers and students to explore the domains

• Collaboration with the school authorities especially at the local level is fairly easy to achieve as an NGO

Opportunities for climate change Opportunities for climate change and energy education in Romanian and energy education in Romanian schools (2)schools (2)

• Schools generally have electronic equipment and logistics to organize movie screenings and multimedia presentations

• Students are very interested in nonformal education as it is perceived as more interesting and down-to- earth than formal education (visits, hands-on activities, peer-to-peer education, etc.)

• Teachers value projects that are interdisciplinary and offer the possibility of knowledge exchange among teachers specialized in different domains

• Communication with teachers works very well because of internet access and email

Using these opportunitiesUsing these opportunities

Education focusing on reducing the carbon footprint

Şcoala 56 – Vizită la ExpoRenewEnergy

Nonformal education –visiting a recycling facility

Students from Traian College visiting GreenWEEE Recycling

Facility in Buzau



Nonformal education – staging a play on sustainable development issues

Lord of the Garbage play at Traian Technical College Bucharest,

written, directed and performed by the students

Using these opportunitiesUsing these opportunitiesVisiting a renewable energy fair in Bucharest with students and teachers from School No. 56 “Jose Marti”, Bucharest

Students from Traian College Bucharest


Students from the European School spending a Green Day in Mogosoaia, together with their parents and teacher


Involving the young in civic action – Earth Hour celebration 2009

Students from Traian College Bucharest

Challenges for climate change and Challenges for climate change and energy education in Romanian energy education in Romanian schools (1)schools (1)

• Because many extracurricular projects request a minimum of involvement, sometimes teachers and students receive with skepticism a complex and long project that requires a lot of involvement

• Especially in the case of projects that involve many schools, it is quite difficult to avoid overlapping the activities of a project with major events of the school year (tests, national exams , contests, etc.)

• Frequent changes of school management (quite often in line with shifts in the political power) creates a discontinuity in the support required from the school management for the success of a project

Challenges for climate change and Challenges for climate change and energy education in Romanian energy education in Romanian schools (2)schools (2)

• Teachers and students share the perception that there are already too many hours that they need to spend in school - the schools program is overloaded - and they are sometimes reluctant devote extra hours to a project

• Government decided in 2010 to cut 25 % off the wages of all the state employees , lowering thus also the enthusiasm of teachers to get involved in in extracurricular projects

Challenges for organizing a Challenges for organizing a project: convincing the teachers project: convincing the teachers to offer their extra time for to offer their extra time for various activitiesvarious activities

Training and organizing team coordinatorsTerra Our Only Home Project, 2009, UN House

Time challengesTime challenges

Organizing a screening of documentary Home UN Information Center on a Saturday morning

Engaging the youth in international Engaging the youth in international events related to climate changeevents related to climate change

Event organized by NGOs in Bucharest to support a deal at COP15. Greenitiative managed to

mobilize students from Bucharest schools (on a freezing Saturday night in December!)

15 Schools for COP15 exhibition at 15 Schools for COP15 exhibition at the UN House in Bucharestthe UN House in Bucharest

Engaging the youth in implementing Engaging the youth in implementing a project a project

Barriers for climate change and Barriers for climate change and energy education in Romanian energy education in Romanian schools (1)schools (1)

• Local government officials - who finance school renovations and refurbishment - are not interested yet in the concept of making schools showcases of energy sustainability

• Even if a school renovation is a painful process in which sometimes it loses a lot of the students to other neighbouring schools, school management is totally ignored by LG officials when taking decisions and thus the renovation doesn’t consider any necessities identified by the beneficiaries of that building while using it over the years


• Though teachers and students in schools sometimes know much more about energy sustainability and climate change than the members of the local city council, schools and NGOs attempts to communicate on these issues are not welcome

• The absence of governmental policies related to tackling climate change has dramatic consequences on the decisions related to investments in schools. A lot of money is simply wasted in low-quality renovations that have little to do with energy efficiency and proper indoor air quality. In this situation, it is very difficult to convince young people and teachers to change habits and reduce energy consumption on their own.


• Despite the fact that schools welcome and sometimes ask for projects related to waste management and resource efficiency, the Environmental Fund money do not support such projects. There is a huge shortage for financing such projects in Romania.

• All these combined with a lot of greenwashing from companies that mistake CSR with marketing , create a deep skepticism that major changes related to sustainability are really going to happen. I was asked many times in schools why are we losing precious time at the grassroots instead of using the resources for changing policies and business people’s ideas, that politicians should change their attitude first …


• Though the educational system is open to working with NGOs in climate change and energy projects, it does not apply for structural funds in order to finance multi-annual and national projects like this, though it is much more easy for them to receive financing.

• The teacher training in universities is sometimes informed by climate change skepticism (Geography School, Bucharest University, even the Ecological University). It is more difficult to work with a teacher on a climate change project when that teacher already received during his/her BA, MA or PhD studies a lot of education that disputed the truth about climate change science.

Jumping over barriersJumping over barriers

Ambassadors support our efforts. What about local politicians?

Overcoming barriers -Energy Overcoming barriers -Energy Day/EUSEWDay/EUSEW

Communicating with politicians and Communicating with politicians and business people on sustainabilitybusiness people on sustainability

On-site training for each of the 15 school teams, Feb. and March 2010

Do they really know what we want?Do they really know what we want?

Involving the young in civic action

Students petitioning local government to make

sustainable investments in schools

Nonformal education for engaging Nonformal education for engaging the youththe youth

Sustainable development education for Eselnita community

Eselnita Parish Summer School

A very optimistic view of a more A very optimistic view of a more sustainable futuresustainable future

Living the change we advocate Living the change we advocate forfor

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