Integrating environmental education into the school curriculum

The organisation’s vision is to help Midlands schools nurture capable, confident, curious children who are sensitive to environmental issues, who have the resilience to cope with a changing world and are able to contribute positively to their communities.

OVERVIEW

The Midlands Meander Education Project (MMEP) will provide comprehensive training in ecology and other environmental issues in a rural school in Dargle, KwaZulu Natal. Five educators and 122 learners at Dargle School will benefit from a participatory, creative and interactive programme in environmental education. Since 2004 MMEP has provided curriculum support to 20 rural and peri-urban schools on the Midlands Meander Tourist Route. Their focus is on supporting the UNESCO Goal of Education for Sustainable Development through regular, ongoing educator support and co-teaching. Target schools participate in the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa’s (WESSA) Eco-Schools programme, which gives internationally recognised accreditation to schools committed to improving their environmental performance.

MMEP fieldworkers bring specialist knowledge, enthusiasm and a new dimension to learning, to support schools to achieve the Eco-School status.

WHAT WE LIKE ABOUT THIS PROJECT

• The project aims to facilitate the integration of environmental education and training programmes into the school curriculum. This is a requirement of the new National School Curriculum, but unfortunately most educators receive no training to enable them to do so. This project will allow educators to do their jobs more effectively while simultaneously initiating a culture of environmental awareness and activism within the school community.
• The training will follow the “co-teaching” methodology, where teachers will gain practical and theoretical skills through an interactive exchange with learners and facilitators in the classroom.
• Action-oriented approaches to environmental education for sustainable development that use participatory methodologies and draw on indigenous knowledge and local experience, such as those used by MMEP, have been shown to be the most effective internationally.
• The school has set itself a very specific goal to be achieved with the help of the project: to acquire WESSA’s Eco-School status at the end of the year. This goal serves as additional motivation the school, and, through a portfolio that must be submitted to WESSA, is also a valuable tool for project monitoring and evaluation.

EXPECTED LIFE CHANGE

An investment of R 56, 250 will enable:

• 5 educators to incorporate environmental lessons into the all areas of the school curriculum as required by the Department of Education;
• 122 learners will acquire new skills and knowledge as well as an increased awareness on ecology.

The estimated direct life change is R442 per person.

NEED

South Africa is a country of economic, geographic and cultural diversity. The Centre for Biological Diversity ranks South Africa as the 3rd most biologically diverse country in the world. However, 34% of terrestrial ecosystems fall within the vulnerable and critically endangered categories. A decrease in ecosystems’ biodiversity is cause for considerable concern because it leads to a reduction in ecosystem services, such as a reduced capacity to generate clean water and a loss of food production due to land degradation.

These trends are likely to be exacerbated by climate change and the consequences will be harshest for the rural poor, who depend on local natural resources for their livelihoods and usually have few alternatives for income-generating activities.

The Southern Africa Regional Environmental Education Programme calls for the design and development of “learning programmes and resource materials that strengthen livelihood and coping strategies (particularly food security initiatives, such as gardening and rangeland management), and that strengthen and build on community-based initiatives to respond to risk and vulnerability”. It is essential to design and promote Initiatives that integrate the concepts of sustainable living and adaptation strategies into education systems at school level.

STRATEGY

In order to increase awareness of the importance of caring for the natural environment and assist teachers in integrating environmental education into the teaching curriculum, MMEP emphasises wise resource use, creativity, sustainable living and community building.

They employ professional environmental education facilitators to conduct practical environmental education sessions in the schools and to assist the schools to achieve Eco-School status. The Eco-Schools toolkit is introduced and explained at a workshop early in the school year to ensure that educators are equipped to work towards this goal.

MMEP requires the school community to show their commitment prior to engaging in a focused intervention. Representatives from each school registered in the Eco-Schools programme attend regular workshops to share ideas and evaluate the process. Once a month, the fieldworker co-teaches with an educator in the grounds of each school (topics are chosen by the educator to fit the theme aligned with the curriculum). Children also gain new skills and understanding through experiential learning at field trips.

MMEP also includes a life orientation component in order to assist educators to identify anxious children, deal sensitively with children with difficulties and build self-esteem in orphaned, abused or traumatised learners.

ACTION PLAN

Preparation

• As a requirement of the Eco-Schools programme, Dargle School will draft its first portfolio for 2009; MMEP will supervise this.
• As part of the ongoing support provided to the school, MMEP will invite educators to their workshops until project start;
• A planning meeting with all educators will be held in order to discuss next steps, study areas and co-teaching schedule for the year;
• MMEP will register Dargle School in the WWF/WESSA Eco-School Programme for 2010 (sponsoring of registration fees);

Implementation

• A planning meeting with Eco-Schools teachers will be held.
• 3 recycling bins will be decorated, marked and installed at the school; this will happen simultaneously to co-teaching on recyclable and non-recyclable materials.
• One-day workshop will be organised for educators on the creative use and integration of waste and eco-art in all learning areas.
• Once a month, in-school co-teaching lessons will be held by three facilitators; lessons will include topics such as life cycles, healthy living, climate change, food gardening, water, weather, indigenous plants (medicinal plants and traditional food) as well as values, rights and responsibilities and hygiene.
• Once a term, specialist support in food gardening will be provided by a local organic farmer; specialist support in creative work will also be made available to the school.
• One field trip will be conducted with those learners in higher grades and their educators to a local area with natural significance;
• A bird ringing demo and forest walk will be organised to explore topics such as mist nets and migration;

Monitoring and Evaluation

Tests will be applied prior to and at the end of the project in order to assess knowledge gain of teachers and learners. As part of the Eco-Schools programme, the school will submit an Eco-School portfolio for independent evaluation at the end of the year. This will contain information on all of the school’s activities in the area of ecology as well as the integration of environmental education into the curriculum. In addition, MMEP will visit the school on a regular basis, which will enable them to monitor improvements in the management of school grounds, especially in the area of food gardening and recycling.

MMEP will complement the project evaluation with a qualitative analysis of the impact of the project on specially selected beneficiaries. They will be interviewed and their perceptions and experiences will be compiled in a document called “Most Significant Changes”.

ORGANISATION ASSESSMENT

MMEP is a highly innovative and committed organisation, which is filling a gap in the area of environmental education in rural under-resourced schools. Their model has been successfully implemented in various local schools, and their support is actively sought by school principals. The team holds multiple years of collective experience in the sector and is connected to relevant peer organisations for the purpose of shared learning.

Two major issues however, could potentially threaten the capacity of the organisation to fulfil its mission in the short-term. First, the lack of a strategic fundraising plan based on programme targets, and second, the heavy reliance on one individual for direction. The organisation conducts limited strategic and financial planning and is heavily dependent on the availability of additional funding for project expansion.

RISK PROFILE

Key Strengths

• Concept: Action-oriented approaches to environmental education for sustainable development that use participatory methodologies and draw on indigenous knowledge and local experience have shown to be the highly effective. In form and content, this project follows international good practice.
• Design: MMEP successfully supported ten rural schools to achieve the Eco-School status in 2008. Their tried and tested model has brought very positive results to other rural schools in the Midlands area.
• Capability: The project team has excellent qualifications and significant and wide experience in implementing environmental education projects at rural under-resourced schools.
• Control: Given the basic design and scope of this project, MMEP has sufficient internal controls and financial oversight in place to ensure project transparency and accountability.
• Sustainability: Five schools, which were previously supported by MMEP, are currently implementing environmental activities without any external assistance as part of their Eco-Schools portfolio. MMEP’s clear approach is to promote self-sustaining schools. Requesting a substantial level of engagement to the school prior to intervention is a good strategy project outcomes extent beyond the project’s timeframe.

Key Risks - Low

• Design: The organisation mostly relies on qualitative project evaluation, with little tracking and measuring of change. For the purpose of this project, new tools have been developed to track and measure outcomes, which will complement the anecdotal evidence.
• Control: Being a small-scale environmental education initiative part of a bigger organisation, MMEP lacks formal and regular controls and reporting systems.
• Sustainability: The sustainability of the recycling project at the school will depend on finding ways to cover the costs involved once the external support is withdrawn. MMEP together with the school will explore two options: the first is to use the extra cash generated by a productive food garden; the second, to develop and market the school as a recycling centre in the community, which would generate some income.