Expert opinion on nature and environmental education

The UNESCO Global Action Program on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) was launched in 2015. The five-year program (2015-2019) aims to bring about long-term systemic change in the education system and to transform education for sustainable development (ESD) from a project into a structure. Berlin sees education for sustainable development (ESD) as an important task of school education. ESD is enshrined in §1 and §3 of the Schools Act. There are different references to ESD in the individual subjects of the framework curriculum. The overarching topic “Sustainable development/learning in global contexts” is anchored in the framework curriculum 1-10. All pupils deal with this overarching topic during their school career. The Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family has published handouts for lessons. ESD quality criteria are being developed for extracurricular places of learning (gardening schools/school environmental centers). The Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family creates an annual recommendation list of certified global learning providers. Since 2009, the state initiative “Implementation of ESD within the framework of the orientation framework for Global Development Education” has been supported together with partners (EPIZ, practical school seminars). Since 1994, on the basis of the groundbreaking House of Representatives report Drs. 12/3787 on “Environmental education and natural history institutions”, the institutions named in the bill have been continuously supported by the Senate Department responsible for nature conservation and environmental education. Then as now, the Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection sees itself as responsible for creating the technical conditions for a healthy, climate-friendly and liveable city, as well as providing sustainable access to the city’s rich natural resources. The aim of the above-mentioned proposal was to:

• Adequately staffing and funding the existing, inter-district nature and environmental education facilities,
• children and young people in the foreground,
• to create spaces where people can experience and encounter nature directly, and
• To make nature tangible to the senses so that emotional bonds can be established.

In future, there will be a coordination office for nature and environmental education for the state of Berlin, which will build on the previous work of the Nature Conservation Foundation. For example, there is already a collection of green learning sites in Berlin, which presents extracurricular educational institutions. There will also be separate coordination offices for each of Berlin’s districts. UfU will survey the current situation regarding nature and environmental education for the two districts by means of surveys and workshops. Based on the results of this, measures will be developed to determine what future coordination centers in Berlin could look like. These will be presented at public information events at the end of the project. The report in Pankow will be available at the end of 2019 and the one in Reinickendorf in spring 2020.