Contents
1. Visibility & Events
A. MEdIES activities in Alexandroupolis, Greece, April –June 2017
B. End of the Survey “Youth responses towards sustainable development in Lebanon” May 2017
C. Two teachers’ trainings on water in Greece: (i) Molae, 13-14/05/2017 (ii) Amfissa, 23-24 June 2017
2. Material & ICTs
E-games for the new Water Conservation Centre in Malta
3. Other News
A. Summer School on Management of Biosphere Reserves, Sardinia, 13 – 20 July 2017
B. UNESCO Reporting on SDG4: Some new outcomes
1. Visibility & Events
A. MEdIES activities within “Water for the City”, Alexandroupolis, Greece, April – June 2017
The MEdIES Secretariat organised and carried out a set of activities in Alexandroupolis (Northern Greece) within the “Water for the City Programme” that is coordinated by GWP-Med, in cooperation with the Municipality and the Municipal Service for Water Supply and Sanitation for Alexandroupolis. The Programme aims to enhance the city's water supply (by a technical work for increasing the capacity of the city’s water reservoir) and to promote sustainable water management at the city level, through awareness raising of students and teachers, as well as of local stakeholders and citizens. "Water for the City" is funded by the Coca - Cola Foundation in Atlanta, USA.
MEdIES Officers (Iro Alampei, Vicky Malotidi, Vassilis Psallidas) spent a week in Alexandroupoli (02-07 April 2017) and visited primary and secondary schools engaging more than 500 students in awareness raising experiential activities about water. A new local educator, Ms Matina Vezirtzi, was trained to then undertake systematically school visits in the city for the period from 25 April until 12 June 2017. All in all, up to June, 1507 students have participated in the school activities.
Furthermore, a total of 109 primary and secondary level educators have been informed about the programme, during the school visits and a dedicated seminar organised on April 3rd.
Additionally, a new online educational platform (neroupoli) is under development to support the students and teachers working on urban water issues (in Greek language, expected to be finalized by the beginning of the new school year).
All educational activities of the programme are taking place in close cooperation with the ESD Officers of Primary and Secondary Education Directory of Evros.
Read more about the "Water for the City" umbrella Programme: waterforthecity.net
Read more about the MEdIES educational component of the Programme here
B. End of the Survey “Youth responses towards sustainable development in Lebanon”, May 2017
The preliminary descriptive analysis and qualitative data analysis of the Survey “Youth responses towards sustainable development in Lebanon” has been completed. Totally, 1.053 students aged 15-18 years old from the Bekaa region of Lebanon filled in the questionnaire asking them about their ideas on sustainability in their lives.
The initial results have been produced; while the full-scale results and report are expected in autumn 2017.
The survey run from January to March 2017 within the Programme "Civil Society in Action for Sustainable Development", that is led by the Makhzoumi Foundation, in Lebanon (AFKAR III), while MEdIES/MIO coordinated the survey (questionnaire development, validation, data analysis). Read more about the Programme here: http://www.medies.net/articles.asp?cID=27&aID=1094
C. Two teachers’ trainings on water in Greece: (i) Molae, 13-14/05/2017 (ii) Amfissa, 23-24 June 2017
MEdIES was involved in the successful organization of two teachers’ training seminars in Greece entitled: (i) “Cultural heritage-Environment & Sustainability” with the Centre of Environmental Education (CEE) of Molae, on 13-14/05/2017 (ii) “Good practices in water resources management in time and space” with Centre of Environmental Education (CEE) of Amfissa. In both seminars Mr Vassilis Psallidas has represented MEdIES and coordinated a Workshop on that focused on rainwater harvesting practices/NCWRS.
Totally, more than 100 educators were engaged in these trainings.
2. Material & ICTs
E-games for the new Water Conservation Awareness Centre in Malta
MEdIES has been keenly involved in the development of an interactive e-game on the “Water Cycle”. The e-game is designed for a large touch screen-wall and is currently played by visitors of the new Water Conservation Awareness Centre of Malta. The e-game that is addressed primarily to 7 -10 yr olds was successfully launched during the Inauguration Ceremony of the Centre, on 21 April 2017. It is the first in a series of four e-games, expected to be finalized before the end of the year. Currently MEdIES is working on a game about “Water in forts”.
The partners behind this collaboration are GWP-Med and MIO-ECSDE/MEdIES (scientific information & scenario development), ‘Caparo design crew’ (story-board, graphics and animation) and the Water Conservation Awareness Centre of Malta (overall coordination).
Visitors of the Water Center are educated and sensitized about water through a series of well designed experiences, including watching videos, experimenting with hands-on models, a geological walk-through with info-points, the four touch screen walls, etc.
More information about:
The Centre itself: http://bit.ly/2uFhGot
The inauguration ceremony in the news: http://bit.ly/2tLQZSL
3. Other News
A. Summer School on Management of Biosphere Reserves, Sardinia, 13 – 20 July 2017
The summer school on “Integrated Management Approaches and Sustainable Tourism Strategies for Biosphere Reserves” will run between 13-20 July 2017, in Sant’Anna di Lodè (NU) at the Tepilora Regional Park, Sardinia (Italy) that has just been added to the UNESCO Catalogue of the MAB Biosphere Reserves (June 2017!).
The summer school that has enrolled 26 trainees will focus on aspects of sustainable tourism and convey the experience of the successful procedures of preparing the dossier of the application to become a BR.
The summer school is supported and co-organised by the UNESCO Regional Office in Venice, the Tepilora Regional Park, MEdIES and MIO-ECSDE in cooperation with the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Development Management and Education in the Mediterranean (University of Athens).
Read more: http://medies.net/articles.asp?cID=27&aID=1123
B. UNESCO Reporting on SDG4: some new outcomes
UNESCO has commissioned an analysis of the country reports from the member states on the UNESCO Recommendation related to Target 4.7 of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on Education. The analysis had very interesting outcomes regarding a wide spectrum of issues: ESD in policies; ESD in the curriculum; ESD in teacher training; etc. Among others, it seems that:
- ESD is increasingly becoming mandatory in the curriculum (33% of reporting countries);
- Yet, regarding the inclusion of ESD in teacher education, only 7% reported it as mandatory;
- More than half of the countries have integrated ESD into their national education policies (51%);
- While 12% of the countries reported to have a stand-alone education national policy, plan or law for sustainable development (SD).
The Full Report is available here
ΜΕdIES Secretariat / MIO-ECSDE
Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development
Kyrristou 12, 105 56 – Athens, Tel. +30 210 3247490, 3247267 Fax. +30 210 3317127
E: info@medies.net W: www.medies.net F: www.facebook.com/medies.net |
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