A potential international support system for Education for Sustainable Development

Meet Otto a cod, in the North Sea  Environmental challenges for Otto first weeks:  Born with toxic chemicals  Feeds on microlayer, highly contaminated  UV-radiation affects his growth  Nutrients produces toxic algae's, reduces his food  Climate change changes his feeding areas  After some months:  Very difficult to get away from the industrial fleet  Moves coast outside Africa  Meets Helen, just to become father – no success  Caught by the EU fleet  Sold as ecological sound product due to new fishing gears

Lessons learned in Norway  Pupils experience that they are able to contribute something useful to society. They do “real work” and produce high-quality results.  Impressive concrete results can be achieved when many schools join together  Better learning and working environment when the school leadership, maintenance people, teachers and pupils co-operate.

Lessons learned in Norway  The Network gives legitimacy to interdisciplinary, action- oriented teaching methods. Teachers and schools receive the support they need for these learning approaches.  Co-operation with “heavy” ministries and research/scientific institutions lends credibility to the school’s work.  The network creates win-win situations between the schools and other parts of the society

Utilise the learning

First prototype of an international edition developed

Builds on Norwegian web solution

User to do menu

6 thematic issues chosen

Easy activity structure

Reporting tool on each issue

Reporting tool on each issue Preface

Mapping tool for data navigation

Projects more emphasised

Participants Activities Intro text Project pages

Support Latest observation Project plans Project pages Latest pictures

Constructing requirements 1  UN decade topic/UNESCO topic structured  Broad sustainable development approach  Hands on learning – student data gives the value  Activities tuned for international comparison of data  Tuned for sharing the students evaluation, discussion and conclusions

Constructing requirements 2  Must work on slow Internet lines  Must be tuned towards international comparison of the results  Must not double English national solutions available for general use internationally  Should provide extensive links to other related teaching support systems both on national and international level

Constructing requirements 3  Students text based evaluations/results must be in English to be comparable  Guidelines, support text and resources might be developed in several languages  Scientific support, user help desk etc can be done by contact person in each country

Good mixture of thematic issues?  Biological diversity  Climate and air quality  Consumption and resources  Democracy and participation  Energy and renewable resources  Water issues

How to proceed? The Norwegian Directorate is open for:  Maintain the solution at our current servers for international use  Make this prototype into an ENSI ICT operational “product” – thereby also basis for ENSI evaluation projects later  Develop it further in 2006 with active involvement from other countries  Establish an international operational editorial board

Contact information: Astrid Sandås, Directorate for Primary and Secondary Education  : Geir Endregard, NILU  : Brage Frøland, School laboratory Univ. in Bergen  :