Sustainable Schools

Sustainable schools prepare students for a lifetime of sustainable living and have some of the following hallmarks:

• Innovative and need-based teaching–learning strategies that contributes to learning outcomes across knowledge, skills, attitude, value, and perspectives.
• Commitment to care at three levels—for oneself, for each other, and for the environment. Thus, it brings in an emotional connect with oneself and the natural and human surroundings.
• An integrated '3 C approach'—,i.e., Campus, Community, and Curriculum. The school campus is not just a space where learning takes place, but becomes a space that provides opportunities to experience learning. School and community have a two-way open link wherein one feeds the other. Sustainable living is integrated with the school curriculum in a planned, grade-wise manner to cover all the facets of sustainability.
• Integration of the various facets of sustainability—environmental, socio-cultural, economic, and political into existing subjects or covered independently through assembly session and club activities.

Teaching–Learning Strategies

The concept of ESD and the various teaching-learning strategies that promote a lifelong learning on sustainable living were also dealt with at the workshop. The core themes of ESD are to promote lifelong learning, interdisciplinary education, partnerships, multicultural education, and empowerment to transform society. Its emphasis on systems thinking, value-based learning, subject integration, and linking knowledge to action have spurred the key activity-based learning strategies to the forefront. Activity-based learning (ABL) methods add to the knowledge of students and encourage them to think critically and analytically. Given this, the workshop discussed and demonstrated some of the following methods: activities, such as quiz, dumb charades, crosswords, hands-on and group activities, project-based learning (PBL), field visit, performing arts, and discussions around films and documentaries and digital media. The central aim while selecting the methods is to map learning outcomes that could be met by these methods and to ensure that these methods touch on all the five domains of the learning outcomes.

The Way Forward

Each school chalked an action plan to transform their school into a sustainable school and this effort signals the first step of exploring mechanisms to embed sustainability within the existing school culture. It requires an ongoing process of planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of a wide range of interventions. Every school will undertake the journey towards sustainability in ways that best suits its need. To bring about an overnight transformation will be a herculean task but dedicated efforts over time will ensure that schools are not only places of learning but an important site to demonstrate and showcase sustainable living across all its facets.

Ms Pallavi Barua , Associate Fellow, Sustainable Development Outreach and Youth Education Division, TERI, Navi Mumbai, India;and Ms Saltanat Kazi, Fellow, Sustainable Development Outreach and Youth Education Division, TERI, Goa, India.