Environmental Education in SA Talk - 10 November 2009

Last night I attended the aforementioned talk. Here is a brief run down of the line up:

Liz McDaid of The Green Connection gave a presentation which included a short educational video on how our actions are negatively impacting the Earth also demonstrating how this can be turned around. Liz then showed us a presentation explaining how Green Connection provides environmental education resources especially to rural communities. Liz stressed the importance of providing environmental education which will help us adapt to the effects of climate change in light of the fact that initially it will be the inhabitants of third world countries who will suffer most from the negative impacts of climate change.

Peter Becker gave a presentation and analysis of how certain unsuitable material can reach teachers and school children under the guise of it being 'educational material' giving a specific example of an 'energy comparison' wall chart of which approximately 3900 copies have been distributed by the City of Cape Town to schools in Cape Town. Read more about this in our earlier post here. Many concerned individuals/organisations (including FLOE) are taking the matter further. We will keep you posted on developments in this regard.

Bishop Geoff Davies and Kate Davies of the South African Faith Communities Environment Institute (SAFCEI) told us about the work that SAFCEI is doing in faith communities. As quoted from their website: "We are an institute of people of many faiths, united in our diversity through our common commitment to earthkeeping. Our aim is to support faith communities in fulfilling their environmental & socio-economic responsibility." Kate Davies also gave us examples of the educational resources that SAFCEI offer in their aim to help church congregations and faith communities become 'eco-congregations'. Although they face many challenges in producing resources to cater for such a broad audience with different faith and cultural backgrounds, they have already successfully produced a variety of material covering a range of environmental topics.