Enthusiam for ESD building amongst trainee teachers

It is exciting to feel the growing trend in interest and enthusiasm for education for sustainable development shown by teachers and trainee teachers. At WWF we are involved with several projects and contacts with ITT and CPD providers.

For example, the PGCE programme at Cambridge University held a conference on Identity and citizenship on 13th January which included ESD and Global Citizenship. Ben Hren, Head of Formal Education, and I were invited to take part in this event and presented a workshop on ESD and our work with schools to a group of the PGCE students.

We were impressed and encouraged by the clear value placed on this work by the students, who came from a variety of curriculum areas. They were keen to find out about the ideas we were presenting and to discuss how they might take ESD into their classroom. They were also keen to explore how to use the school as a learning resource, modelling the features and having an ethos based on the values and attitudes which enable more sustainable life choices.

We found it a thoroughly positive experience and it is good to know that there are trainee teachers out there who see ESD as core to their practice, not an irritating add-on.

Liz Jackson