TRAINING WORKSHOP ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
(8-9
April, 2013)
Organized by
Peri-urban Water
Security Project,
Nepal Engineering
College
Schools in our community play a critical role not only in
shaping minds of the children, the knock on effect of which contributes in
creating society capable to deal with challenges. Considering the role schools
can play in fostering awareness about environmental issues and preparing the
students at individual level, followed by family and the entire community for
conserving and maintaining healthy environment, environmental education was
incorporated into school curriculum. This has also been included as a
requirement of the new National School Curriculum, but unfortunately most
educators receive no training to enable them to do so. Recognizing the
contribution that teachers can make to create awareness at the community level,
peri-urban research team at nec
organized two days long training workshop on Climate change and environmental
education for the secondary level teachers from all schools across the four
study sites. The purpose of this
training was to inform school teachers about general concept of climate change
including tips and techniques on communicating it clearly into their classroom
teaching and at community levels thereby ultimately contributing to reduce its
adverse impacts. Simultaneously, the training also aimed to contribute in
initiating a culture of environmental awareness and activism within the school
community. The training programme was organized, at nec-CPS premises in Balkhu and targeted teachers from schools
across all four peri-urban study sites teaching science and environmental
science subjects to secondary level students.
The programme was scheduled for two days on 8th
and 9th April 2013. Professional environmental education facilitators were
outsourced from Clean Energy Nepal (CEN), a non-profit organization focusing on
research based education and advocacy campaigns on issues related to climate change, sustainable energy use
and environmental conservation. The aim of outsourcing facilitators from CEN was
to ensure the training for effective conveying of basics of climate change
science, its impacts, responses towards changing climate at different levels
and awareness on climate change and effectively propagating significances of
environmental awareness. This also aimed to motivating teachers to include
action-oriented approaches to environmental education that use participatory
methodologies and encourage students towards practical application of environmental
education.
Thirteen participants (9 male and 4 female)
from different schools across the site participated in the training. The first day
of the training focused on widening the horizon of understanding on the basics
of climate change science, impacts of climate change, concepts of adaptation,
coping, and resilience in responding to climate change through deliberations
and discourses aiming to convey the issue of climate change more effectively
within and beyond class rooms thereby ultimately contributing to reduce its
adverse impacts. The second day focused primarily in upgrading the teachers
skill in integrating climate change education in school, in making assessment
of eco-friendly environment within school premises and involving students in
such activities at both school and community levels by means of group discussions
and exercises on these.
Day 1
The welcome speech was delivered by Mr. Rajesh
Sada, Research Co-ordinator. With short note on the research project, project
partners, supporting institution, the research objectives and the objectives of
the training, he handed over the floor to the facilitators from Clean Energy
Nepal to formally begin the training sessions.
Introducing herself, Ms. Amita Thapa Magar from
CEN gave a brief introduction of CEN, including its prioritized working areas
and publications in various environmental issues. She then collected a brief
note on the expectation of the participants from the training so as to frame
the training sessions effectively achieving the targets. The main expectations
of the participating teachers focused on improving the individual knowledge on
basics of climate change and learning new skills of teaching students on
climate change and engaging students in environmental friendly activities.
Fig 1: Science of Climate Change
The technical session
began with a comprehensive presentation by Mr. Sunil Acharya from CEN on the
Science of Climate change. Explaining that the global climate system is a
consequence of the earth’s energy budget and influenced by The Atmosphere, The
ice sheets (Cryosphere), Living organisms (Biosphere), The soils, sediments and
rocks (Geosphere), he discussed more details of climate system, energy budget,
carbon cycle, climate models and climate forecast. His presentation also
included note on green house gases, emission scenario by developed countries,
emerging economies and the least developed countries relating it to the
negligible emission scenario of Nepal. During the presentation, the
participants clarified their doubts on the green house gases and the
facilitator also introduced the concept of carbon foot print including the need
to reduce it. He also introduced the international treaties and protocols on
reducing carbon emission and the blame game that has been going on at the
international level for accepting the role in carbon emission and how has that
ultimately hampering the motive of reducing carbon emission. Explaining the
global climate change scenario, he also explained the temperature increase rate
being above the global average, increase its vulnerability to the likely
negative impacts of changing climate.
Following
this was the presentation by Mr. Manjeet Dhakal from CEN highlighting on the
potential impacts of climate change on different regions of the world and
impact of climate change specifically in Nepal especially in Agriculture,
Natural Disaster, Water Resources, Biodiversity and Health. Sharing the
instances of various incidences that have occurred over Nepal, he also shed
light on those aspects that can be aggravated with increasing climatic uncertainty
through the evidences which have started to be gradually manifested.
Simultaneously, remaining circumspect on the misinterpretation of the impacts
of climate change, he stressed on the risk of growing trend of heedlessly
attributing every incidence to climate change and emphasized on the need of detailed
study and investigations. Furthermore, he also briefly discussed on the
positive approaches that have been initiated in Nepal reducing emission of
green house gases and mitigation to climate change. Appreciating the activities
such as promotion of alternative source of energy and community forests, he
briefly explained the contribution of these practices as the clean development
mechanism and the contribution made by these technologies as source of revenue
through carbon trading.
Proceeding
forward was Ms. Anushiya Shrestha, Research assistant, peri-urban research team
at nec, shared the findings on the
study of climatic variability in Kathmandu wherein she briefly shared on the
findings from climatic data analysis with major focus on the impression of
changing climate and the impacts of climate change as perceived and experienced
by the local people along with the adaptive and coping strategies practiced by
the local people across four peri-urban VDC. Sharing the findings contributed
the teachers to be aware about the field based realities and thus capacitate
them in effectively communicating the findings with the larger mass including
students, their colleagues at the school and the community itself of which they
are well appreciated as intellectual
groups. Thus could be an effective mediator for disseminating the findings to
the community. Following this Mr. Sada added upon the major issues across each
of the study sites and how these have been affecting the livelihood of local
people and provoking dissatisfaction among the local people and instigating
conflicts of different natures.
Following
this was the a documentary show explaining the context of changing climate in
Nepal, the impacts of changing climate and the activities undertaken and the
challenges Nepal has been facing through in addressing the issues of climate
change. Next was the deliberation on different ways of responding to climate
change by Mr. Acharya and Mr. Dhakal. During the presentations, they described
the concept of mitigation, resilience, coping and adaptation. Mitigation is
related with the human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks
of greenhouse gases while adaptation at local, community, national were described
as stage having resilience over the climatic variability. The presentation also
explained about the concept of loss and damage as the concept that has come up
to address the vulnerability of the climatic impacts and include actions to
compensate the irreversible impacts of climate change despite the action to
mitigate climate change. As per the presenters, damage can be those economic or
non-economic negative impacts that can be repaired or restored while loss can
be characterized as those negative impacts that cannot be repaired or restored.
Loss and Damage represents the actual and / or potential manifestation of
climate impacts that negatively affect human and natural systems. These
concepts being new and the participating teachers were confused to some extent.
The confusion was cleared up through the instances from different countries,
national practices and local practices including the coping and adaptive
practices documented by the peri-urban research team through the study.
Mr.
Dhakal shared his experiences and the analysis on the context of global
conferences on climate change, the mechanism of participating by different
nations including delegates from Nepal and the efforts and complications in
developing the strategies, conventions and frameworks that can be accepted by
developed, emerging economies and the least developed countries. Alongside, he
also highlighted the current status of national adaptation plan of action (NAPA)
and local adaptation plan of action (LAPA) in Nepal where both have been
prepared but the implementation at the field have not yet been commenced.
Closing
the day, Mr. Sada suggested the participants for more active participation in
the following day for which the participants considered the climate change had
been a very important issue for them as the environment and science teachers
but were lacking knowledge thus the first day had been highly informative and
useful in expanding them understanding on the conceptual and contextual
scenario of climate change.
Day 2
The
second day of the training dealt with the importance of climate change
education in school education and the need of including climate change within
curriculum and expanding the umbrella of curriculum to provide the information
on the climate and create next generation aware, concerned and prepared to
tackle the climatic uncertainties. During the presentation, Mr. Sunil Acharya
shared local, global and future dimensions to climate change education and
suggested on the use of local learning and real life experiences as means of
motivating the young people and their communities in climate friendly behavior
and preparing them to respond to the threat of changing climate. He also
stressed on the need of expanding the on-going role played by teachers beyond
the academic drilling for stimulating and reinforcing understanding of and
attentiveness to the realities of climate change where reducing the consumptive
behavior, shifting to non-polluting renewable energy sources and environmental
conservation through reforestation and afforestation were presented as some of
the areas where the teachers can be self- involved and inspire the students to
be involved. He introduced 4C framework to climate change learning which
included curriculum, campus, community and culture as the four pillars of
climate change education. Furthermore, his presentation also explained how developing
action addressing climate change and implementing educational and training
programs beyond the class room course and science on climate change can
contribute as the main vehicle in addressing a societal responsibility in reducing
the scope and severity of climate change.
Fig 2: 4C Framework to Climate Change Learning
Following
this was a presentation by Ms. Amita Thapa Magar where she reflected on ways
and shared practices of initiating climate friendly behavior in school. Introducing
the concept of green audit, she explained it as a self assessment of the school
environment lead by the students on different themes viz. water, waste and land
(open space). She explained how the
exercise on green audit will help students to understand the existing environmental
condition of the schools. Sharing her experiences of working with various
public and private schools, she explained how have the “Save My School” (SMS) ambassadors
have been facilitating the Green Audit in the schools and also conducting
trainings and orientation programs in the school in coordination with the
school management even at the schools with resource constraint.
She
also presented the overview of school program conducted at different schools
through students which included the formation of Students’ Committee and their
active participation in Green Audit, Action Plan, Local Day of Action. The
participating teachers shared different natures and scales of environment
friendly practices exercised at their school. Some of those mentioned included
rainwater harvesting, plantation of a tree within the school premises by each
batch of students passing the school leaving certificate and involving students
group in caring for the planted tree. Among others, involving students in
environmental campaigns, rally, maintaining cleanliness of school and
community, declaring the area as open toilet free zone and polythene free zone
were some already practiced at different participating schools. An interesting
case was from Jhaukhel where the students from different houses or teams were
involved in maintaining organic garden within the school premise under the
monitoring and guidance of the teacher of individual house and the produced
vegetables were exhibited and marketed among the teachers. The collected fund
were maintained by students through house wise account and used for the
maintenance of the garden.
Considering
the growing urbanization and pollution in Kathmandu, Ms. Magar suggested
engaging students in assessing and analyzing the consumption pattern and
pollution level within the school premises and involved the participants in the
demonstration through questionnaires developed for water audit, land audit and
waste audit. She further suggested on forming the Green-Schools Committee which
should be as representative of the whole school or capacitating the existing
nature-club/ eco-club of the school to act as a Green School Committee. For
this, her strong recommendation was on managing an active involvement of students,
teachers including the principal and non-teaching Staff for the effective
continuation of the initiatives. She also pointed out on the need of
appreciation and encouragement for students's activities on wall magazine,
notice board and other school program. Additionally, she also collected some activities
that the participants thought could be imparted from them as teachers to their
students in promoting environment and climate friendly behavior. Some of those
stated by teachers include turning off appliances when not in use, encourage
the parents and relatives to change the light bulbs to energy efficient ones,
planting trees, to walk, cycle or use bus, carry a cloth bag when going shopping
instead of plastic bags etc.
The
teachers from private school accepted themselves to be in more resourceful
situation can conduct extracurricular activities including the environmental
friendly behavior, while the teachers representing the public school shared the
pathetic situation where the students and the parents are unable and/or
unwilling to make any investment and thus expanding the working area beyond
academic arena was extremely challenging and thus requested CEN for the
possible help and support. Addressing the request, the resource persons from
CEN accepted to continue interactions to support some schools and also provided
the name of organizations potential to provide the support.
The
last session involved furthermore group works where the participants in five
different groups discussed on climate change. This session helped the
participants to reconfirm their understanding on two days session on climate
change and integrating environmental education in school. Furthermore, the
performance by the team was instrumental in evaluating the understanding of
individual participants for the facilitators and the nec-peri-urban research team as the organizer. The resource materials
were provided to all the participants. As all the schools were on the verge of
entering into the new academic session, the participants showed enthusiasm to
initiate and expand the education on environment and promote awareness on
climate change among the students, co-workers, school administration and
furthermore expand at the community level.
The
session was closed with the speech from Prof. Ashutosh Shukla on environment,
water and climate change and closing remarks by Mr. Sada.
