Posts Tagged ‘place based education’

Ecumenes and Ecological Islands

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022

1 Ecumenes: economic units 

The term ecumene comes from the Greek word oikoumene, which means inhabited land or inhabited world. Ecumenes are bounded geographical areas where people have made their permanent home.  Ecumenes contain all work areas occupied and used by the population for agricultural or any other economic purpose. They also include areas or features of special interest protected and managed for purposes of conservation.  They provide opportunities for study or research into social heritage.   The UK town of Grimsby is a good example of an ecumene with dire economic issues (Fig 1). The coastal landscape around it  has been characterised by mudflats and salt marshes.  The town was mentioned in the Domesday Book, when it had a settled, self contained population of just 200 and a priest, a mill and a ferry.  It stands on the creek of a small river which flows into the Humber.  For many years and at the end of the Middle Ages, the town itself was virtually an island with only one road into it from the South. Grimsby’s economy was built on fishing the River Humber and the North Sea   The arrival of the railway in 1848 made it easier to transport goods to and from the port.  Direct rail links to London allowed for fresh ‘Grimsby fish’ to arrive at London’s Billingsgate Fish market and became renowned nationwide. The demand for fish grew to such an extent that at its peak in the 1950s, Grimsby became the largest fishing port in the world.  

Five decades later, Grimsby’s socio economic problems were manifold.  All that remained of the once 700-strong fleet from its 1950s peak were a couple of crabbing boats and maintenance vessels for the offshore wind industry. To this picture of the economic decline of the fishing industry could be added skills shortages, long-term jobless families, deprivation, drugs, homelessness, empty homes, fly-tipping and children in care. The government’s indices of deprivation ranked Grimsby’s East Marsh as the fourth worst place in the UK for employment, the second for crime and the worst for education, skills and training. These statistics highlight a post industrial educational deficit, which is common to developed and developing ecumenes world wide and requires classrooms in nature with a local syllabus, focussed on the concept of ecological islands, that blends prosperity with ecological localism.  

Fig 1 The Grimsby UK ecumene

2  Ecological islands

Nature reserves within ecumenes may be described as ecological islands of high biodiversity in a ‘sea’ of low biodiversity (Fig 2). Nevertheless, whether they are nature sites or urban parks they can form the base of eco learning networks. Such projects reflect current theories of learning including those focusing on the ways people construct understanding of phenomena they encounter in everyday life (constructivism) and those that describe learning as an outcome of interaction with the socio-cultural and bio-physical environment (social learning). Case examples illustrate the myriad of community learning arenas adopting a  culture of gifting in which civil society groups, local government, and volunteers collaboratively engage in environmental stewardship, communicating through learning hubs.  A gift economy, or gift culture, is a system of exchange where valuables are not sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards.

Fig 2 Wink’s Meadow: a local nature reserve

In general, the concept of ecological islands drives the application of conservation management to protect and enhance nature sites within four key interwoven strands of environmental education (SEEs):

  • science-framed education, focussed on the conservation management of biodiversity; 
  • place-based, indigenised and bioregional education; 
  • education for climate change and disaster risk;
  • education for sustainable economic development. 

These strands of knowledge are an outline syllabus of radical hope to deliver a widespread consciousness on the fragility of the environment, which can have a very strong impact on people’s quality of life. There are few places in the world where the need for hope about the sustainable use of Earth’s resources is as acute as in islands.  Islands should therefore be positioned at the centre of education as socioeconomic models of sustainable development and biological evolution.  

The idea of ecumenes provides an overarching, integrative, flexible, humanistic approach for describing and analyzing the inhabited world and its densely populated parts that may be described as big island states.  Small island developing states (SIDS) were first recognized as a distinct group of developing countries at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in June 1992. The Barbados Programme of Action was produced in 1994 to assist the SIDS in their sustainable development efforts.  

3 Eco Learning Networks

The following propositions from David Selby and Fumiyo Kagawa highlight what they think is distinctive and hopeful about environmental education within SIDS as ‘islands for hope’. 

1  environmental education initiatives on islands are markedly eclectic in their rich blending of practice from within the different SEEs. 

2  Environmental education on different islands, especially in the Pacific, is marked by a return to indigenous, community-based learning. 

3 There is a distinctive island pedagogy regarding  the greater weighting given to relational, socio-affective and action-orientated learning about circular economies

4 There is a paucity of inter-island cosmopolitan dialogue.  Questions are asked about how to ensure islanders, steeped in learning about place, can be brought to connect with the global culture of mass consumerism and its environmental impact. 

5 The frequency of cross-curricular, interdisciplinary, even trans-disciplinary framing of environmental education initiatives is identified as bringing a distinctive syllabus and curriculum of hope to island practice. 

These educational propositions reject the idea of an open, ever-expanding economy, which inevitably depletes Earth’s finite natural resources every time we create something, leaving behind waste and toxicity when we dump it or burn it. The hope of education for conservation is that by encouraging a circular way of thinking  we repair and reuse as much as we can, and remanufacture and recycle to save resources, reduce waste, and reduce costs.  

The article, “The Circular Economy Runs Through Basel,” by Paul Hagen, Russ LaMotte, Dacie Meng, discusses the emergence of the Basel Convention as the key international legal system governing anthropological relationships between culture and ecology.  This system is exemplified by the management of toxic waste set out in the Convention’s business plan for 2020-23. With this level of detailed planning and global action  the ISLANDS Green Forum created by the Convention can be a virtual classroom for developing island models to bring cultural ecology to the centre of education at all levels.  The educational aim is for young people to discuss and promote the adoption of a post-2030 circular economy, communicating  ideas and achievements for local environmental sustainability.  An eco-learning network (Fig 3) with this aim can rally and unite young people to make realistic, but dynamic change, creating positive impacts for our planet now.  It supports them by teaching the skills and knowledge needed to benefit and improve planet Earth throughout their lifetimes.  This requires a community development workforce that can support the creation of an inclusive society that encourages individuals to achieve their potential and contribute to  society and their communities. The 2030 objectives therefore are to transform learning for young people and adults by facilitating communities to identify their own needs and aspirations, take action to exert influence on the decisions which affect their lives, improve the quality of their  own lives, the communities in which they live, and societies of which they are a part.

Fig 3  An online community of practice communicating ideas and achievements to  establish an eco learning network for living sustainably

The blue field in Fig 3 represents a small island developing state which has created an online community of practice consisting of schools and the families they serve networking as an eco learning society to produce and apply neighborhood action plans to promote a local closed cycle economy.  People use blogs and the Green Forum to share ideas and achievements.  They work with local governance to keep their activities in line with national initiatives and model local businesses, that have adopted closed cycle practices, as educational resources.

A procedure to develop an eco learning network from a grass roots level can begin with a school and the communities it serves according to the following protocol.  

(i) A School joins Ecoschools International (https://www.ecoschools.global/)

(ii) The School links with: 

  • the families in its catchment;
  • the local governance organisation e.g. the parish council;
  • a local business operating, or working towards, a circular economy.

(iii) The School follows  Ecoschool’s 7 steps to an interactive action plan using toolkits, such as those designed for neighbourhood disaster planning, to visualise and meet the plan’s objectives.

(iv) The School communicates its ongoing achievements and ideas to other Ecoschools via blogs and the Green Forum to make the network grow.

To summarise, the educational outcome is to transform learning for young  people and adults by facilitating communities to identify their own needs and aspirations.  They take action to exert influence on local decisions which affect their lives.  These local operations, through a neighbourhood action plan,  improve the quality of their own lives, the lives of communities in which they live and work, and the societies of which they are a part. This plan is created by the local Ecoschool and its community, which regularly monitors its performance indicators.

School/Community ECO-learning Networks

Sunday, October 31st, 2021

A procedure to establish a network of school-based Eco-learning Centres to help families served by the schools meet local sustainability targets.

Summary

ECO-Learning: the system

ECO-Learning: the conservation management system


1 A Syllabus for Radical Hope

Fig 1 A young person’s syllabus of radical hope produced by ‘children of the world’. for living sustainably 

This project is a response to ’Rescue Mission Planet Earth’,a radical syllabus for hope  published by an international group, consisting of thousands of young people, from over 100 countries, who were invited to the 1992 Rio Environment Summit (Fig 1).  They envisaged a global network of schools and the communities they served as a democratic eco-learning system. The objective was for them, as members of local communities, to participate in the management of relationships between culture and ecology, according to their skills and vision of the future, in order to live sustainably.  These visions and skills are an expression of individualised learning, which involves providing different tasks and support for each learner at the individual level because all learners have different needs.  Therefore each learner requires a personal approach to learning so that the activities that learners undertake and the pace at which they progress through the syllabus, will be more effective.

Fig 2 The school/community elements that come together to establish a procedure for organising a local eco-learning system

In this respect, a radical hope syllabus is a living project of individualised learning, and anyone interested in adding a topic or concept can contribute to the syllabus, which is a blend of local action and reflection. In particular, instructors should be continuously reflecting on their teaching practices and using their observations to update how they engage with their students (Fig 2).  It is in this sense that eco-learning is radical, and assembling a syllabus is an act of radical hope because it is  aimed at a fundamental, root-level, transformation mindset in which a better future takes shape.   Out of the students’ critical refusal to abide by the limitations of uniform, school-based learning, which forces people out of community-thinking, comes a lifelong “learning-by-doing” experience, which utilizes communities and neighbourhoods as extensions of the classroom.  

The educational objective of Rescue Mission is to link schools with the communities they serve to help produce a local version of Agenda 21 (LA21).  LA21 was an important outcome from Rio; a voluntary process of local community consultation to produce long term action plans for sustainable development. It is about the need for local and national conservation management and encompasses awareness raising, capacity building, community participation, leadership training and the formation of local partnerships.  LA21 has now been augmented with Agenda 2030, which sets out a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.

2  The Procedure to establish a school/community eco-learning system.

An eco-learning system serves as a resource for anyone interested in environmental issues and assembling a personal body of knowledge about how to live sustainably and participate in plans for the survival of future generations. It provides a new way of framing and thinking about how individuals or groups might formally or informally learn about current environmental issues and how people, collectively and/or individually, might respond to them.  From the environmentalist’s perspective, ecolearning means guiding the relations of humankind with a fast changing global environment. It surged in popular and scientific interest during the 1960-1970s, with the rising of conservation movements, but has yet to produce a matching education system.

The procedure to establish a school/community ECO-learning network is based on the Green Guide (Fig 3) produced by schools of the Garw Valley, in South Wales that was initiated by the Valley’s Community Council functioning as a social learning hub.

Fig 3 The Garw Green Guide

Each participating school has to set up an online ECO-learning centre (ELC) to display connections between culture and ecology from a local perspective.  Eco-Learning Centres are a development of the idea of community museums of culture and ecology, which originated in France, the concept being developed by Georges Henri Rivière and Hugues de Varine, who coined the term ‘ecomusée’ in 1971.  A community ELC is a voluntary organisation focusing on the identity of a place.  ELCs built on an IT platform naturally encourage social interactions of individuals, families and schools with local plans for sustainable development. 

Taking the idea of community museums, an ELC acts as a clearing house of information about global warming. Therefore clearinghouses collect, develop, and disseminate materials on climate change suitable for informing the local communities about the current state of climate change (Fig 4).  This could help provide focal points for information on issues such as energy efficiency, energy savings, forestry, agriculture, environmentally sound housing and transportation efficiency. Information exchanges would also provide a means to share technical knowledge and expertise. 

Fig 4 User-friendly graphic adapted from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Climate Change (IPCC) IPPC Special Report on Global Warming for a school/community information clearing house 

The establishment of an ELC proceeds in 4 phases.  Phase 1 is about creating a local environmental surveillance system by bringing together schools , communities, neighbouhoods and the Parish or Community Council.  In phase 2 the schools organise a good and bad sevey to articulate what people like or don’t like about where they live. Phase 3 is about what should be done to improve the bad things; who should do it and what they should do.  In other words, the objective of Phase 3 is for communities joining with their schools to participate in designing a regenerative sustainable development plan for their locality.

Phase 4 is for individuals, schools and communities to produce a radical syllabus of hope to promote lifelong learning about how individuals can create a personal body of knowledge to live sustainably.  The themes, topics and concepts of Rescue Mission, illustrated with pictures and poems produced by the Rescue mission collective, may be taken as the model of such a syllabus

These four phases define the relationship of an ELC with its community, its governance, its biophysical heritage and its plans for the future (Fig 5).

 Fig 5 The ECO-learning system

3 Focusing on local materials and colour

Through colour, emotions and senses as a whole are able to give strength and respect in the relationship between humankind and environment, proposing practical and spiritual meaning  to ‘sustainability’.  It is not by chance that the most recent planning developments on sustainability focus upon the central role of humans and their psycho-physical equilibrium with good and bad environments.The practical viewpoint is that if a place is to become attractive for settlement  care must be taken to ensure the environment is pleasant to look at, homogenous and coordinated with its ecosystem services. For example, in the post-coal mining valleys of South Wales many would say the varied greens, soft greys and russet browns, enriched with the sudden blaze of the heather and gorse in the late summer, should not be marred by the garish reds, yellows and blues found in the paintwork.  Therefore, an important outcome of Phase 2 could be a colour-based environmental appraisals; applying arts reasoning to explain sustainability.The adoption of colour to describe nature and the environment dates back to the Middle Ages, when nature was seen to be coloured like the four elements defined by the ancient Greeks: the mat black of earth, the dark blue of air, the brilliant red of fire, the greyish cobalt blue of water.  In this context, colour presents a sense of place.

Green is now always the colour of renewable energies, zero-mile food, holidays, innovation and smart technologies. Therefore, we can represent ecology with infinite colour scales and colour in the environment becomes an essential scenic element defining the local and wide meaning of place.  Green is not simply devoted to the renewal of old forms in new products, but mainly used as a pre-project element able to set a dialogue with senses and mind through the meanings of materials, culture, form and human interaction. 

4 Prosperity

Global surveys illustrate the depth of anxiety many young peop[e are now feeling about climate. change.  Today, there are 1.2 billion young people aged 15 to 24 years, accounting for 16 per cent of the global population. The active engagement of youth in sustainable development efforts is central to achieving sustainable, inclusive and stable societies by the 2030 target date.  Their participation is necessary to avert the worst threats and challenges to sustainable development, including the impacts of climate change, unemployment, poverty, gender inequality, conflict, and migration.  We know exactly how the physical limits of our planet are being reached and exactly why we cannot go on as we have before and yet, collectively, we seem unable to reach crucial decisions for our future in a timely way. It can be argued that the definition of prosperity, which we have long assimilated with the idea of material wealth, may be preventing us from imagining a future that meets essential human aspirations without straining our planet to the breaking point. In other words, redefining prosperity is a necessary and urgent task.  The need to discuss a new economic alignment is evident from surveys of well being (Fig 6) where achieving monetary affluence comes well down on the list of what makes for a good life.  

Fig 6 What Americans think of the American Dream. 

It is impossible to look at many environmental indicators without worrying that an economy measured by GDP is on borrowed time. This is why it is important for local environmental appraisals to concentrate on natural capital, the resources, systems and services nature provides for human economic activity, such as food, air purification, nutrient cycling, materials and minerals. Poorly managed natural capital is a liability in any economy. Also, the sense of social fracture in so many places, leads to questions about the stability and relevance of social capital, which depends on the accumulated trust within communities and institutions and the ability of a community to be more than the sum of its individual actions.

The manifesto of an ELC defines prosperity as something to be wished for beyond material pleasures. 

It transcends material concerns. 

It resides in the quality of our lives and in the health and happiness of our families.

It is present in the strength of our relationships and our trust in the community. 

It is evidenced by our satisfaction at work and our sense of shared meaning and purpose. 

It hangs on our potential to participate fully in the life of society because it consists in our ability to flourish as human beings within the ecological limits of a finite planet. The challenge for our society is to create the conditions under which this is possible. 

It is the most most important urgent educational task of our times.


The Green Guide system of environmental appraisal was pioneered in the South Wales Garw Valley in 1997-8.  It is now available, together with Rescue Mission, to everyone through the Green Garw Web Site managed by International Classrooms On Line, 

https://sites.google.com/view/green-garw/home


https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_III_chapter_07.pdf