What is the initiative and where is it implemented (city or country, for example)?
Bogotá, the capital city of Colombia, introduced environmental classrooms to promote awareness and understanding of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The Chingaza moorlands, where the project is implemented, feature diverse flora and fauna due to hills and wetlands, presenting a wide array of natural phenomena that aid understanding of native ecosystems. The Environmental Classrooms initiative aims to maintain the natural environment and develop a better understanding of nature in people, resulting in improved interaction and resource management. The initiative’s educational content is streamlined, based on environmental interpretations and aimed at all age groups. An interdisciplinary pedagogical team oversees the process. Currently, the Environmental Classroom strategy is being developed in Soratama, Entrenubes Mountain District Ecological Park, Santa María del Lago Wetland District Ecological Park and Mirador de los Nevados District Ecological Park.
How was the initiative established? How was it implemented?
Since each protected natural area has unique characteristics, each environmental classroom proposal is adapted to the specific parameters and modified to suit the environment selected for the classroom location. One of the aims of the environmental classrooms is to raise awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity, which helps assess the impacts of climate change. To reach that aim, stakeholders observed the ecosystems of the high Andean mountainside, the primary forests surrounding Bogotá and the peaks of the snow-capped mountains of the central mountain range, which highlighted the level of deterioration caused by climate change.
The initiative uses various platforms to make announcements, increase awareness and ensure easy access to the information on the project. The information is shared through the official website of the environmental classrooms, the Secretary for the Environment’s social media and other means of communication. The programmes are distributed to educational institutions through the Secretary of Education of Bogotá. Pedagogical teams are responsible for raising awareness and managing the programme locally in the environmental classrooms.
Which stakeholders are involved in the design and/or implementation of the initiative? Which sectors do they represent?
Stakeholders include authority figures and representatives of the general public. The State Secretary for the Environment is responsible for leading and coordinating the environmental classroom strategy. The Secretary collaborates with public entities, companies, educational institutions, and private, public and social organizations to promote knowledge and change patterns of interaction with nature. The collaboration extends to include the Administrative Department of the District Civil Service, which sets a goal of raising environmental awareness among public servants. Another active stakeholder of the initiative is the Secretary of Education, responsible for strengthening competencies in teachers and students. The programme is designed to support citizens, organizations and local mayoral offices to preserve biodiversity and implement ESD practices. To fund the initiative, the Secretary for the Environment outlines investment projects which align with Bogotá’s development plans.
What are the impacts of the initiative in terms of facilitating lifelong learning? Who does it benefit and how?
The Environmental Classrooms strategy is believed to have an increasingly positive impact on the population in terms of raising ecological awareness and changing the patterns of interaction with nature. The classrooms also support research on the environment and allow the public to become educated in their spare time. To establish a connection between people and the environment, it is essential to familiarize them with environmental education strategies. The project is monitored and supervised to ensure proper implementation. Quarterly evaluation uses the Secretary for Planning’s monitoring platform. An Integrated Management System and special evaluation committees also take part in the process.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has led to inevitable setbacks, it has also allowed the team working on implementation to increase outreach via technology. For instance, the team organized virtual tours, allowing a larger number of people to observe the area's biodiversity.
Simultaneously, the virtual scenario has presented a number of challenges, such as restrictions on the number of participants on the platform. Since the programme's main aim is to improve interaction between the citizens and the environment, the initiative's success might be hindered by government restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic. The Environmental Classroom strategy must be implemented in nature, with a work plan, an educational syllabus and designated teams. It is essential to integrate ESD strategies into formal education to raise environmental awareness further and support the objective of establishing a balanced relationship between people and nature with adequate use of environmental resources and devoted ecosystem protection.
References
UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning. 2021. ESD Implementation in Learning Cities. [Online]
Available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379535 [Accessed 1 December 2021].