Train People to Sustain, Can We?

Recent data from National Geographic (Jan 2011), the population of people around the world will reach 7 billion (!) by the end of this year, and this fantastic number will still be increase along the year. Almost every nation face problem due to this explosion. Some of them can overcome the problems and attain the happiness for the citizens, either from economy, health, or the other aspects. Meanwhile, the other parts of the world can't do it--most countries in Africa and a little part of Asia.

What will happen then?

It's not exaggerated: WAR! Yes, hunger and poverty occurred in underdeveloped countries
at one time may happened in developing, or even developed countries if they can't preserve the nature. The supply of food will not be sufficient for 7, 8, 0r 10 billions people in years later. Eventually, those countries will fight for food, and BOOM! war happened.

What can Environmental Education (EE) do to solve the problem?

In my opinion, EE can not only solve, but also avoid that. When we learn about EE, we must learn also about ESD (Education for Sustainable Development). ESD can't be separated with EE since they are interrelated. EE is a part of ESD while the concept of ESD itself, actually developed from environmental issues as (partially) mentioned above. Bizarre things happened on our nature since the recent decades made some experts thought, there must be something wrong with our earth. After examined the problems faced by the world, they compose the concept of ESD, which cover many aspects. Climate change, human right, gender balance, racial issues, health, and economy are just some of the aspects of ESD. The great thing is, all of them can be covered through one key: education for all.

Why must be education? We know that education is the most important key in changing the world. Through education, we can change people thinking way and their behavior into a better ones. However, the application of ESD in school doesn't mean teachers should change all of the syllabus and materials. They need to infuse the concepts of ESD and its aspects to the material, in order to prepare students to face the real problems around them, and create a sustainable future.

The good news is teachers and educators in Indonesia begin to give more care on the application ESD in school. One of the applications is Adiwiyata program, which has goal to make school as a good place to start a change in gaining awareness to save our earth sustainably. Schools that want to be an Adiwiyata school have to fulfill some requirements, such as the development of school policy that give attention in environment and culture issues, the development of environment-based curriculum, and the maintenance of supporting elements in school.

However, not all teachers know the essence of ESD that they just think about environmental education--whereas actually, it's just a little part of ESD huge coverage. Even there are still some schools that think Adiwiyata program is just a certificate, without caring about the sustainable development. Again, it's one of our job as the next generation of teacher to continue the struggle, to train and educate people to build a sustainable future. Can we do it? Of course, if we believe that we can and invest some efforts to realize it. I think, learning deeper about Environmental Education is one of the best investment. ^^d

Small Things, Big Impacts

What does come up in your mind if someone ask you to count how much water and electricity you consume in a day, or how many polybag you use? Just wasting your time?

Yup, it's just the same with me when Ms Stien Matakupan, the lecturer of Environmental Studies asked the class to do an environmental audit. But later on, I realized that those small things we often ignore really give impact to our life, now and later, even until hereafter.

Let's look the closest place for us, our room.How many electronic tools do you have? How long you switch on each of them in a day? It sounds worthless, but if you count the power you use (Watt x minutes used, and then multiply it with the amount of CO2 released, you will realized that you have just contributed kilos of carbon into the atmosphere. You can take this quiz to measure how much "poison" you release and how your lifestyle impact to our earth.

Still in your house, take a look how many plastic bag there are.I bet, you will find a lot in your room and your kitchen. The more we buy anything, the more plastic bag we have.

Did you know, if we throw it into the land now, the grandsons of our grandsons can still find the pieces of it in the layer of land? The plastic bag--the soft one--will be fully degraded after 500 years, and many more years for the hard one. I really appreciate the effort of some department store, which create the eco-friendly polybag that can be degraded only in 2 years.



Nevertheless, since there are sooooo many people buy goods there, there will be sooo many plastic bags thrown into the earth. These plastics will decrease the fertility of the soil, or if it is thrown into a river, it will make the stream stagnant and finally it will destruct the ecosystem of the river

So, is still there any way to save our earth? Of course, there are always solutions.One simple thing we can do is saving the use of electricity, as shown in below video.




Besides, there is a simple thing we can do. Buy a paper or canvas bag and bring it whenever we go shopping. When the cashier/merchant starts to put in your belongings into a plastic bag, refuse him/her assertively while giving your own bag, "I'm sorry, I have had my own bag."