Teachers Training Course

CEI Poland is organizing Teachers Training Course for teachers from Poland and abroad, from 6th to 10th of November this year. This is one of the tasks under the ERASMUS+ project „EduCO2cean - STS Education models to transmit to society the challenge of global change in the ocean”, coordinated by the ASPEA (CEI Portugal), in collaboration with the University of Vigo Spain, Ciencia Viva Portugal, Marine Alliance for Science and Technology for Scotland, CEI Poland and schools in Portugal, Spain and Poland. The aim of the five-day course is to present methods for creating student activity and promoting good practices in environmental education. Classes will be conducted in English and Polish language, 8 hours a day, by academic staff of the University of Silesia. The partner is the Scientific Information Center and the Academic Library in Katowice, and the event is covered by the Honorary Patronage of the President of the City of Katowice and the Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Environmental Protection, University of Silesia. This demonstrates the great importance of ecological education for local authority. But environmental education is also very important in the world, for international organizations and universities. Very inspiring and compelling to think in this regard are words from interview with Arjen Wals* Transgressive learning in times of global systemic dysfunction, quoted below:
Well we need nothing less than a radical re-orientation of education. The one single species that has been able to alter the Earth’s ecosystems, climates, ocean levels, biodiversity in detrimental ways, must now find a way to do better. Indeed positivistic, reductionist, empirical analytical science and a neo-liberal economic system that demands continuous growth and innovation has broad us loads of possibilities and has made live for many very comfortable – although certainly not for all, but we now are beginning to understand that the ‘side-effects’ of this way of thinking are accelerating and limiting the futures for humanity and the other species we are dragging into our mess.

Note: for people from abroad, interested in participation, there are still several places for free. Accommodation in Katowice on your own cost. Info by contact box. Detailed program of TTC.

anToni Salamon

*) Arjen Wals is Professor of Transformative Learning for Socio-Ecological Sustainability at Wageningen University, also Founding Board Member and Past President of CEI.