{"id":6486,"date":"2015-11-04T09:02:32","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T09:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6486"},"modified":"2015-11-04T09:02:32","modified_gmt":"2015-11-04T09:02:32","slug":"questions-for-fee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/11\/04\/questions-for-fee\/","title":{"rendered":"Questions for FEE"},"content":{"rendered":"

FEE<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 the Foundation for Environmental Education \u2013\u00a0is the international group that manages (amongst other things) the Eco-schools franchise, and which therefore, one way or another, determines and\/or limits what national Eco-schools teams can do and achieve. \u00a0This is what\u00a0FEE<\/a> says:<\/p>\n

\"Eco-Schools is a fundamental initiative which encourages young people to engage in their environment by allowing them the opportunity to actively protect it. \u00a0It starts in the classroom where it expands to the school and eventually fosters change in the community at large. \u00a0Through this programme, young people experience a sense of achievement at being able to have a say in the environmental management policies of their schools, ultimately steering them towards certification and the prestige which comes with being awarded a Green Flag. \u00a0The Eco-Schools programme is an ideal way for schools to embark on a meaningful path towards improving the environment in both the school and the local community while at the same time having a life-long positive impact on the lives of young people, their families, school staff and local authorities.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I take the view\u00a0that FEE needs to re-think\u00a0the balance of activities within its\u00a0Eco-schools programme. \u00a0As I see it, from observations within the UK, learning does not yet have as much\u00a0prominence as campus \/ environmental management within the programme, and the prime focus remains on this management, for example, lowering schools' eco \/ carbon footprints and reducing waste and energy use. \u00a0The quoted text (above) illustrates that FEE encourages this. \u00a0It seems to me that, because of this, children\u2019s learning can happen in quite an incidental way, rather than being a carefully designed and prioritised outcome of a clear pedagogical process. \u00a0For me, children\u2019s learning should be seen as significantly more important than environmental outcomes. \u00a0If these are both positive, then that\u2019s ideal,\u00a0but learning outcomes should be prioritised, as this is what schools are for. \u00a0Anyway, schools produce only about 2% of our carbon emissions, but they have 100% of the students.<\/p>\n

I understand from contacts within the UK that FEE may well have begun to move in this direction, and I have seen its (2014) environmental education principles which talk about engaging\u00a0participants in the learning \/ teaching process, although they don\u2019t mention outcomes. \u00a0However, I think FEE may need to do more to guide national operators in how to prioritise children\u2019s learning. \u00a0One way to do this, would be to change the Green Flag application process, so that national operators (such as\u00a0Keep Britain Tidy<\/em>\u00a0in England) have to ask eco-coordinators to exemplify\u00a0the sustainability knowledge, skills, competencies and values that they have nurtured in their pupils through each Eco-school step, and hence through the school curriculum. \u00a0Doing this over the next decade or two would build a global evidence base of the impacts that learning for sustainability programmes such as Eco-Schools are having. \u00a0Whilst this might be difficult to implement, the impact of simply asking teachers to report on learning outcomes might well change the way they approach their co-ordination of an eco-committee\u2019s activities which could make a huge difference in real terms, and potentially quite quickly.\u00a0 It was clear in the\u00a0Eco-schools roadshow I attended recently that Keep Britain Tidy is increasingly trying to help teachers to understand how important it is to be mindful of the values being engendered and reinforced through their educational and environmental activities.<\/p>\n

Finally, If I were being very critical, I\u2019d probably\u00a0ask FEE why, after 20 years, they don\u2019t have a more robust evidence base to demonstrate the environmental and learning outcomes of the Eco-schools programme. \u00a0The sector badly needs a better evidence base for EE generally, and FEE \/ Eco-schools is very well placed to gather it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FEE\u00a0\u2013 the Foundation for Environmental Education \u2013\u00a0is the international group that manages (amongst other things) the Eco-schools franchise, and which therefore, one way or another, determines and\/or limits what national Eco-schools teams can do and achieve. \u00a0This is what\u00a0FEE says:...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}