This unique programme is designed to provide participants with the opportunity to deepen their understanding, knowledge, and skills to integrate Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Global Citizenship into classrooms, schools, and curricula. It contributes to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, with a specific focus on SDG 4, target SDG 4.7; and can serve for those working in primary and secondary education, universities, and non-formal education settings.
Unlike most programmes in sustainability, here, the Earth Charter (EC) is used as a central feature of this approach. The EC provides a broad, inclusive and powerful values-based orientation that can be infused within the missions and purposes of most educational programmes. The methodologies introduced are ones that can be applied to all learning across the curriculum and across grade levels.
This six-month four-course online programme, implemented under the under the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter, counts on great and highly experienced facilitators, and unlike most programmes in sustainability, the Earth Charter (EC) is used as a central feature of this approach. This Programme offers great flexibility for participants, so they can carry out the coursework when it is convenient for them.
Participants who successfully complete this Online Programme will be invited to join the Earth Charter Educators Network and to become a Verifier of the Earth Charter & ESD School Seal.
This 7th edition of our Online Certificate Programme on Education for Sustainable Development, will run from 17 January to 26 June 2024.
Programme objectives
Strengthen the knowledge, skills, and abilities of educators to implement Education for Sustainable Development and Education for Global Citizenship in their work, providing a space for dialogue and professional update on pedagogical processes of transformative learning that respond to the new guidance and educational needs in this area. The programme will offer a special space to look into the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Specifically, this Certificate Programme seeks to:
- Clarify concepts of sustainability, sustainability values and principles, sustainable lifestyles and responsible consumption; and global citizenship, as well as the synergies between them.
- Deepen and expand knowledge about new paradigms of education associated with education for sustainability, sustainable lifestyles, education for global citizenship and transformative education.
- Strengthen the capacities and skills of the educators to integrate the values of sustainability in their areas of action, and develop educational programmes that promote a new awareness of our relationship with the environment and sustainable lifestyles.
- Explore methodological and transforming pedagogical tools that can be used in educational programmes.
- Motivate and inspire educators to contribute, through their areas of action, in building more coherent, harmonious, and sustainable societies.
- Stimulate the exchange of experiences between educators from different contexts and regions.
Some expected results
When completing the Certificate Programme, the participants will:
- Develop a greater understanding of sustainable development, the Sustainable Development Goals and their application in education.
- Be familiar with new paradigms of education within the framework of Education for Sustainable Development, and related themes.
- Deepen knowledge and pedagogical tools to incorporate values-based education for sustainable development in educational programmes and processes.
- Internalize the ethical framework for sustainable development that is articulated in the Earth Charter, as a set of fundamental principles and values for building a more just, sustainable, and peaceful society.
- Strengthen the abilities and skills to work with the values and principles of sustainability and the Earth Charter in educational programmes.
Participants profile
This Certificate Programme is aimed at K-12 teachers (primary and secondary educators), education professionals, and academics in different areas and levels of education (in formal or non-formal education settings).
Methodology
This is an online Certificate Programme; therefore, sessions follow the model of asynchronous learning, where participants have the flexibility to complete the sessions when it is convenient for them.
In addition, there will be six real-time seminars, one at the beginning of the programme, one at the end of each course and the final seminar. Also, each course facilitator will organize a contact meeting during each course, to give the possibility for participants and facilitators to meet and interact in real-time.
It is expected that participants take a minimum of 4-hours per week to complete all courses work. Plus, the implementation of a final project, which can be connected to the participant’s day to day work, and can be done individually or in a group.
Courses
The courses provide a balance of theoretical and practical analysis and include video chats offered by facilitators, individual study materials, and forums where participants have the opportunity to share their views and experiences on the subjects.
The four courses offered are:
| 1 | The Global context for Education for Sustainable Development: understanding sustainability and the planetary boundaries |
| 2 | Values and Principles for Sustainability: The Earth Charter as an Ethical Framework and a Call to Action |
| 3 | Transformative Learning, Worldviews, Sustainability: Experiential Education and the Earth Charter |
| 4 | Transformative Learning and ESD: A Holistic Pedagogy Grounded in the Neurosciences |
Requirements to conclude the programme
Requirements to successfully conclude the Programme and obtain the Certificate:
a) Conclude all the courses and meet basic course requirements.
b) Implement the final project and present a report.
Schedule
| Live Session Introductory Seminar | 17 January |
| Course 1: The Global context for Education for Sustainable Development: understanding sustainability and the planetary boundaries | 17 January –20 February (Asynchronous) |
| Live Session: Course 1 | 7 February |
| Live Session: Transition Seminar 1 | 21 February |
| Course 2: Values and Principles for Sustainability: The Earth Charter as an Ethical Framework and a Call to Action | 21 February –26 March (Asynchronous) |
| Live Session: Course 2 | 13 March |
| Live Session: Seminar: Education Policies for Agenda 2030 | 3 April |
| Course 3: The Way Forward: Models and Skills for Implementing ESD with the Earth Charter | 3 April – 7 May (Asynchronous) |
| Live Session: Course 3 | 24 April |
| Transition Seminar 3 | 8 May |
| Course 4: Transformative Learning and ESD: A Holistic Pedagogy Grounded in the Neurosciences | 8 May – 11 June (Asynchronous) |
| Live session: Course 4 | 29 May |
| Live Session: End of courses Seminar | 12 June |
| Live Session: Final Seminar | 23 June |
“The Programme is an eye opener and life changer about how to view our place on this Earth and what we can do to make it a better for all going forward.”
DR. ROSE CARDARELLI, FACHE
EXECUTIVE COUNCIL, KDP | NGO/DPI REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UN
CEO, EDUCATION FOR ALL COALITION
Facilitators
Dr. Sam Crowell
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Dr. Crowell is professor emeritus of education at California State University–San Bernardino and a founder and co-director of the MA in Holistic and Integrative Education and the Center for Holistic and Integrative Learning. He has worked as an elementary school teacher, a principal, an administrator, and a university professor. He considers himself a holistic educator and an advocate of the artistry of teaching. He has been actively engaged with Education for Sustainable Development and the Earth Charter and co-authored the book, “The Re-Enchantment of Learning: A Manual for Teacher Renewal and Classroom Transformation” published by Corwin Press, and just released his new book, “Emergent Teaching: A Path of Creativity, Significance, and Transformation.”
Maria Garcia- Alvarez
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Maria Garcia- Alvarez (Spain) is a Senior lecturer by the Global Project and Change Management BBA program at the Windesheim University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. She is a lecturer in Geopolitics & Globalization and Global Challenges, using the Earth Charter to teach on values approach to sustainable development. She is co-developer and coordinator of the educational concept Value Creators, awarded by the Dutch Ministry of Education with the higher award on education innovation. She is an Earth Charter certified ESD Educator and she is involved in other international networks working on Sustainable Development, such is UN SDSN, UN Habitat, Wellbeing Economy Alliance and the IDGs initiative. She is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy, Anthropology and Education at the University of the Basque country, where she carries research on innovative learning environments to foster Education for Sustainable Development. She is also a guest lecturer for the Master of Leadership and Sustainability Aldatuz, faculty of Economics at the university of the Basque Country, where she lecturers on alternative futures for sustainable development. She has authored and co-authored different articles published internationally in the field of ESD. At the moment, she is also Special Editor for Springer Nature series on Discover Sustainability, where she guides an edition highlighting tools and concepts to overcome barriers for a full implementation of ESD in higher education. In the Netherlands, she is member of the Board of Directors of the National Comenius Network, fostering innovation in higher education.
Dr. Mark Hathaway
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Dr. Mark Hathaway is an adult educator with extensive experience in both Canada and Latin America. He is the principle author (along with Leonardo Boff) of The Tao of Liberation: Exploring the Ecology of Transformation (Orbis, 2009) which integrates perspectives from economics, ecology, social justice, spirituality, and post-modern cosmology. Mark is currently a Vanier Canada Graduate Scholar in the Adult Education and Community Development Program at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada. His doctoral research explores the cultivation of ecological wisdom – along with the intersections between transformative learning, worldviews, ecopsychology, and engagement for sustainability – by examining the significant life experiences of 24 environmental educators and activists.”
Dr. Mirian Vilela
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Mirian Vilela is the Executive Director of the Earth Charter International Secretariat and the Center for Education for Sustainable Development at UPEACE. Mirian has been working with the Earth Charter Initiative since early 1996. She is coordinating the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development with the Earth Charter. She was a member of the UNESCO Expert Reference Group for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) and has been a professor on Sustainable Development at the University for Peace since 2005.
Dr. Alicia Jimenez
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Alicia Jimenez is the Director of Programmes at the Earth Charter International (ECI) Secretariat in Costa Rica. She is a biologist with a MSc in Resource Development from Michigan State University in the US and since 1998 has been working in the field of conservation and sustainable development. She worked in the IUCN Mesoamerica’s Regional Office and the National University of Costa Rica, and has been involved as a visiting professor at the University for Peace. In 2006, she joined the ECI, where she oversees the promotion of the Earth Charter as widely as possible, especially in Latin America, Africa & Middle East and Asia Pacific. In addition, she is involved with the Secretariat’s projects on education for sustainable development.