UNEA-2 Green Room Event No. 22

26 May 2016, Thursday 17:00-18:00

Innovation and Solutions: Environmental Education for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Organized by: Global Universities Partnership on Environment and Sustainability (GUPES)

UNEP Environmental Education and Training Unit (EETU)

Background: Education plays a vital role in transforming our societies towards a sustainable future and serves as a key driver in the effective implementation of all Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). GUPES, established by UNEP in 2012, has grown into a network of 800 universities, aimed at mainstreaming environment and sustainability knowledge, awareness and capacities across the globe.

Expected outcomes:

Better understanding and active involvement in the innovative approaches (e.g. MOOCs, e-learning) for mainstreaming environmental education. The new MOOC opens for early registration;

 Shared upcoming courses and training opportunities at CIPSEM, UN:CCLEARN, and others;

 Enhanced interactions among environmental education professionals through eePRO/ GEEP; and

 Introduction of Sustainability Literacy to audience and sign up (by universities) to SuLiTest.

Structure:

1. Innovation for mainstreaming environmental education:

 SDGs requires reorienting education system towards more integrated, interdisciplinary knowledge system and more rapid knowledge access. Since 2015, UNEP has been developing Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to accelerate incorporation of environmental knowledge;

 UNEP’s first MOOC on Disasters and Ecosystems: Resilience in a Changing Climate, developed in collaboration with Cologne University of Applied Sciences, had over 12,000 registrations;

 The new MOOC Ecosystems Approaches and Systems Thinking aims to use ecosystems as “learning laboratories” to enhance people’s understanding of inter-related & complex systems;

 The MOOC Nutrients and Waste Water Management mainstreams knowledge from the Global Programme of Action for protecting marine & coastal environment from land-based activities;

 UN CC:Learn (http://unccelearn.org/) is a UN supported learning platform that provides quality e-learning resources on climate change. Each course builds on the expertise of relevant UN partners. All courses are freely available as a public good. Since the launch in 2014, UN CC:Learn has 34 UN partners and 30,000 registrations to the courses till today.

2. Partnership for environmental education:

 The Global Environmental Education Partnership (GEEP) and eePRO are two programmes under the leadership of the North American Association for Environmental Education (https://naaee.org) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). They create an online community that connects environmental education professionals and to best practices;

 The Center for International Postgraduate Studies of Environmental Management (CIPSEM) at TU Dresden is a UNEP/UNESCO/BMUB course programme that offers a range of integrated environmental management courses and study tours since 1977, aiming at supporting the environmentally sound and sustainable development of emerging and developing countries by assisting professionals from ministries, agencies or local government units and NGOs in improving their knowledge base and skills and through the opportunity to reflect attitudes.

UNEP/DEPI/EETU March 2016

3. Assessment of Sustainability Literacy - SuLiTest.

 SDG target 4.7 is set for quality education by 2030. “Sustainability Literacy” is new term to describe people’s knowledge level. The Sustainability Literacy Test offers a practical tool to measure the education performance, outcome and promote learning, with focus on sustainability.

Tentative Agenda:

Keynote Speakers:

Oyun Sanjasuren, UNEA President, Member of Parliament, Mongolia

Wu Jiang, GUPES Chair, and Vice President, Tongji University

Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UNEP

Panelists:

Innovation

Peter Stoett, Concordia University, Canada

Robert Beauchemin, KnowledgeOne CEO & President, Canada

Lars Ribbe, Cologne University of Applied Science, Germany

Vincens COTE, UN CC:Learn Secretariat (TBC)

Partnerships

Judy Braus, NAAEE Executive Director, USA

Ginger Potter, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), USA

Anna Görner, CIPSEM, TU Dresden, Germany

Assessment

Carteron Jean-Christophe, SuLiTest manager, KEDGE Business School, France

Mahesh Pradhan, UNEP International Environmental Technology Centre (IETC)

Moderators:

Pablo Fuentenebro, EETU

Mariam Osman, EETU

Brian Waswala, EETU