Implementing Environmental Education in Your School

Environmental Education can be implemented in many ways and each school will do it differently based on their situation and their needs.

Teachers How to review Curriculum
A good way for individual teachers to start is:
Conduct curriculum or program audit to identify current environmental teaching then investigate ways to introduce more environmental activities and materials to your programs.

School Community
For the whole School Community setting up a School Environmental Management Committee can guide a coordinated whole school approach to implementing the NSW environmental Education Policy. As well as Curriculum, the focus will be on School Resource use and School Grounds Management.

School Environment Management Plan (SEMP ) should include:

The schools major environmental objectives
Sub-committee recommendations for achieving these objectives through Curriculum, School resources and School Grounds
Audit Results and Action Plans specific for major objectives eg Paper, Resource use, Energy, Water
Reviews of actions

Examples of School Environmental Management Plans

Seven steps to a SEMP

* Form an Environmental Management Committee comprising representatives from the school's administration, teachers, students, canteen staff, general assistants, cleaners and parents.

* Determine and record your Major Environmental Objectives e.g. adopt sustainable management practice, improve the physical nature of the school grounds etc

* Form a sub-committee for each of the following areas:

Curriculum
Management of resources, and
Management of school grounds

These sub-committees outline to how each of the major environmental objectives will be addressed by each of their areas.
This will form the basis of your School Environment Management Plan or (SEMP)
For the curriculum group addressing major environmental objectives should be:

Cross-curricular
Based on principals of Quality Teaching
Teaching & Learning and Assessment focussed
Student action/research based
Contextual with the school and its environment

* Teacher and students investigate the major environmental objectives initially by:

Conducting an environmental audit Resources Audit
Preparing an Plan Action Plan

* Action plans are submitted to the School Environmental Management Committee the make up another section of the SEMP. The School Environmental Management Committee can Prioritise and integrate the Action Plans into the SEMP.

* Teachers and Students - research and investigate solutions and implement suitable strategies from the Action Plan

* Student’s record improvements or change and report this back to the School Environment Management Committee, who will incorporate the evaluation into the Annual School Report. The progress is reported against the SEMP and new priorities may be identified

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Implementing Environmental Education in Your School