<p><font color="#33711E"><strong>Day 2 – Session 3A: Curriculum Reform for Sustainable Development</strong></font></p>

Queen's Park 1, 08:30 - 10:00

08:30 - 08:50

3.A.1. A Collaborative Activity for Curriculum Development: Challenging Issues in Local Communities

Yoshiro Ono, Masahiro Habu, Shino Mohri and Hideki Yamamoto Graduate School of Environmental Science, Okayama University, Japan

The Graduate School of Environmental Science at Okayama University has been engaged in promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for the past two years and has engaged in activities to promote ESD at local level. One such activity, conducted by the UNESCO Chair in Research and Education for Sustainable Development, in the Graduate School of Environmental Science at Okayama University, has focused on issues in rural communities. These issues include the aging rural society and depopulation (of youth), and the related problems, such as lack of maintenance of trails in the mountains in the tourist areas, and the inability to pass on local traditions linked to maintenance of infrastructure in the community. In this project, these issues were taken into consideration in a high school in which the curriculum had incorporated ESD perspectives. An example of a university's contribution to curriculum development and community development, this project enabled high school students to participate in community development activities. This paper will present the current situation in terms of implementation of the project and the outcomes and challenges faced.

Download the paper (pdf, 160kb) and presentation (pdf, 1.5mb)

08:50 - 09:10
3.A.2. Preparing Pre-service Chemistry Teachers for ESD through Green Chemistry
Mageswary Karpudewan, Zurida Hj Ismail, and Norita Mohame
Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

Education plays a critical role in realising sustainable development and raising the capacity of people to address environmental issues and improve the quality of life of present and future generations. Integrating sustainable development concepts into the curriculum is an approach to ensuring that education is appropriate in terms of content. The subject of Chemistry, for example, is a subject in which sustainable development concepts can be easily integrated. This paper will report on an initiative to integrate sustainable development concepts into green chemistry experiments. The paper reports on a study which employed repeated measure design involving 110 pre service teachers enrolled in a chemistry teaching methods course. The findings of the study indicate that, overall, green chemistry experiments have enhanced the acquisition of both environmental knowledge and sustainable development concepts among the participating pre-service teachers. This paper concludes by discussing the implications of the study's findings in terms of teacher education.

Download the paper (pdf, 80kb) and presentation (pdf, 350kb)

09:10 - 09:30
3.A.3. Promoting Participation for Sustainable Development through Community Problem Solving Projects
Irene P-A Cheong
Universiti Brunei Darussalam

This paper reports on attempts to promote Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) by requiring university students to participate in real life Community Problem Solving (CPS) projects. Data was collected from 20 CPS project reports of 51 university students. Analysis of data involved evaluating the latest ten CPS projects by the pre-service teachers to determine if they represent elements of ESD, including elements such as the three pillars of ESD; economics, society and environment within the umbrella of culture; the characteristics of ESD; the concepts of interdisciplinary and holistic approaches; values-driven education; critical thinking and problem solving; multi-method approaches; participatory decision-making; and locally relevant approaches. Results of the study show that the CPS projects evaluated represent most of the elements of ESD. The paper concludes that requiring higher education students to participate in CPS is therefore a viable way to promote ESD in higher education.

Download the paper (pdf, 70kb) and presentation (pdf, 780kb)