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Discussion Groups from the Education Seminar

Held on Wednesday 28th November 2001 at Tipperary Institute, Thurles, Co Tipperary

"Greening the Institution" Discussion Group

The outcomes from the discussion group were as follows:

• Educational institutions must 'walk the walk' of sustainability - not just talk about it. Otherwise students will become cynical if their institution is not practising what it is preaching.
• Education was seen as an important element on the road to improved sustainability. There was discussion as to how best to get the message to students (in all levels of education).
• Schemes in which students can see the benefit of their actions were considered likely to succeed - e.g. where the efforts of the students resulted in a guide dog being purchased for the blind.
• For institutions, the benefit of saving money by reduced resource use and reduced waste production could be used to sell the idea of improving environmental performance.
• In recycling schemes, it is essential that all links in the chain are in place - make sure the materials being collected are in fact recycled!
• Attention-grabbing advertisements (e.g. a stark post-oil world) were also considered an option to promote sustainability.
• The Government has an important leadership role to play.
• Planning and design (of the campus and buildings of educational institutions) is another important consideration.
• Simple actions that can be taken include: photocopy double-sided; don't photocopy pages with just a few lines of text per page (consolidate the text); use refillable whiteboard markers with washable ink.
• We must demonstrate positive action to others in order to promote change.

"Sustainability in the Curriculum" Discussion Group

Participants:

Opportunities for promoting sustainability in our curriculum:

• Economic Climate - the vulnerability of our 'open economy' to global recession is creating a growing interest in more localised/sustainable economics
• Market our institutes as 'green', integrate this culture into our institutes and curriculum
• Need for Primary and second level teachers to incorporate awareness into their curriculum.
• Need to change attitudes generally at pre-service level e.g. Teacher Training, H.Dip., etc and at in-service level - teachers, lecturers and educators in general.
• Need to market sustainability as being trendy and fashionable.
• The need to respond to climate change may open up opportunities
• Need to have a mass circulation of HETAC guidelines
• Need to develop business links to provide funding for course development, however need to be careful about the business ethics of the funding organisation.

Constraints at the level of the curriculum:

• HETAC need to be more proactive when it comes to promoting the guidelines they circulated regarding the protection and improvement of the environment.
• Reluctance of single discipline faculties to engage in the kind of interdisciplinary approach that sustainability requires

Information/Resources/Supports required:

• Need for regular workshops to keep people up to date with issues
• Need for handbook, specific websites, academic resources - journals, articles etc.
• Need for the issue of sustainabilty to enter and inform all mainstream text books across all disciplines.
• Need for more Irish based material - it was mentioned that the group might get together and compile a text on topics e.g. engineering, agriculture, organic farming, water treatment etc.
• Need to question our teaching methodologies - need to be more creative and experiential in our teaching.
• Need for a regional database and network, so members could support each other.

Ecological Economics Discussion Group

Based on report to plenary session from Mr. Michael Walsh, Department of Business, Cork Institute of Technology.

The group had discussed how the so-called 'world' economy was in fact a Western world economy, and worked to the disadvantage of less developed countries. The example was given of indigenous people in less developed countries being pushed off their land by the expanding areas planted under cash crops. The FEASTA Boora Bog eco village project was also discussed in the group. The group also considered the issue of indicators (as addressed by Richard Douthwaite in his presentation). Finally, the group considered energy to be the big issue in sustainability.

Discussion - Recommendations

Continue to Appendix: List of Participants

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