Canada at the WSSD Sustainable Development: A Canadian Perspective

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2 CHANGES TO DECISION-MAKING STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES

2.5 EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

In 1992, shortly after UNCED, over 4000 environmental educators from 90 countries came together in Toronto for the largest gathering of environmental educators in Canadian history, Eco-Ed. Canada has engaged its citizens to learn about their environment through initiatives such as the Canadian Network for Environmental Education and Communication (EECOM), established in 1993. EECOM’s mission is to engage Canadians in learning about their environment by enabling teachers, educators, and communicators to work together to nurture environmentally-informed and responsible individuals, organizations and communities.

At the post-secondary level, the Canadian Consortium for Sustainable Development Research (CCSDR) brings together research institutes and major teaching programs in the areas of sustainable development, environmental policy and environmental technology. The network includes the heads of the major environmental studies programs teaching at the graduate level and university-based research centres and institutes. Several Canadian universities (such as British Columbia, Moncton, New Brunswick, Ecole Polytechnique, l’Université du Québec à Montréal, Sherbrooke) have established Chairs, Centres or Institutes in Sustainable Development. The Quebec government has created a ‘Fonds d’action québécois pour le développement durable’ to finance research and provide student grants. For its part, the federal government established scholarships to promote inter-disciplinary research on issues related to sustainable development.

Other noteworthy education initiatives include:

• Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF), a not-for-profit organization that works with educators from across Canada to integrate the concepts and principles of sustainable development into curricula at all grade levels, through support for sustainability curriculum and policy development, materials development, professional development, and capacity building.
• The Hurley Island Project, an Internet-based sustainability education and technology course that gathers secondary students from across Canada in the same virtual classroom to exchange visions of a sustainable future for Canada.
• Green Street, an innovative pilot project in Atlantic Canada, Alberta and British Columbia, makes it easier for teachers and students to choose a pre-screened environmental program to meet their needs and interests.
• FEESA, an Environmental Education Society in Alberta, promotes, coordinates and supports bias-balanced environmental and sustainability education on issues such as energy, climate change, and water.
• The Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History phenology project Thousand Eyes, where students observe, record, and study natural history events with a view to understanding climate change. This project is based on an observation initiative undertaken in Nova Scotia schools one hundred years ago.

Some of the most important environmental education occurs outside the classroom. Governments continue to play an important role in providing consumers with information about the environmental implications of the choices they make by, for instance, publishing energy efficiency ratings for automobiles and appliances. Many utilities publish advice on how to reduce energy and water consumption. For their part, environmental groups have made the raising of public environmental awareness the cornerstone of their activities, and organize a variety of activities on specific issues such as wildlife conservation, clean air and the reduced use of pesticides.

Since 1999, Environment Canada has engaged over 5,400 Canadians in a nation-wide consultation with a view to developing a National Framework for Environment Learning and Sustainability. This is Canada's response to UNESCO's request that nations implement the recommendations contained in Chapter 36 of Agenda 21: Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training. The Framework, along with over 300 action plans from members of a strategic alliance on education and sustainability from all sectors of society, will be tabled at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002.

By definition, educational efforts take time to bear fruit. While Canadians are more environmentally-aware than ever before, polling research also reveals that many do not make the link between their lifestyle choices and environmental effects. This has led to inconsistent behaviours, such as high rates of household recycling co-existing with a continued demand for large gas-guzzling vehicles.

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