According to the UN, it is dire need of today that the world community and citizens must protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers and wildlife of the planet.
Implication for the education system and instructions is in the form of Integration of education with sustainable development. In other words, the curricular content and practices must be based on growing global need to address the environmental concerns.
According to the NCERT, at the school education level, the integration must be done holistically by adapting the school curriculum, teaching-learning practices and school and home environments of each learner by involving the entire school community (children, teachers, head-teachers, support staff) and the neighbourhood to work together through participatory, practical and collaborative approaches.
It is further added that concerns on sustainable development to be inculcated through education should be addressed through curricular and co-curricular interventions with the strategies of infusion, integration, whole school projects, learning expeditions, etc., rather than making it as a separate subject of study.
The NCERT has proposed the green school model by developing a the Whole School Development Plan (WSDP) that envisions child-friendly schools, responsive schooling by ‘ensuring safe, secure, clean and hygienic environment for all children with optimum resource utilisation through environmentally sustainable practices.’
The NCERT’s green school model has the following features
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Providing real world experiences to enable learners to analyse, evaluate and draw inferences about problems and concerns related to the environment and take suitable action to facilitate and participate in the pursuit of sustainable development.
Teaching practices with classroom environment that helps imbibe awareness, sensitivity and the necessary skills to be environmentally responsible citizens of mother earth.
Right from the classroom to school corridors and other open spaces, it includes examples of learning opportunities provided by common school activities in and beyond school to build child-friendly and environmentally meaningful ethos with a physically safe, psychologically enabling and emotionally secure environment for children.
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