"Nature and Us" ESD Center
Early Childhood Education for Sustainable Development
Sustainable development as part of our family lifestyle
Here is how we try to put principles of sustainable developent into everyday practice. Perhaps in the pictures below you can find interesting ideas for ESD.
Every morning we get up, then wash our face and brush our teeth, have breakfast, have our morning coffee or tea, turn on TV or computer, take a bus to work (school, university)... This way we all are actively using all sorts of resources, leaving our “environmental footprint”. Sustainable development depends on everyone of us, and it all starts in the family. Most official international documents about education for sustainable development talk about the importance of family ESD (education for sustainable development).
Every member in a family leaves her or his “environmental footprint”. All of them make a larger “family footprint”. We want to make the “footprints” of our families shrink as much as possible. Since we're professionally involved in the matter, we decided to implement at least some ESD ideas in our everyday lives. And the most important thing is to do it together with children and grandchildren. Of course, each family has its own approach to the problem. And that depends not only on one's aims, but also on one's resources and abilities.
Of course many people do things like that, and even better than us. But we also decided to take scientific approach to analyze our lifestyle from the point of view of sustainable development. And we want to show that a common family can do a lot to lessen its impact on environment, without essentially changing the habits of its members.
As we use transportation
Since we live in large cities, we have to use some means of transportation. Most often we use the bus and the subway. However, some of us prefer bikes (and the city's bike-sharing network) and roller blades whenever they have a chance, and the youngest of us use kid's scooters and skateboards. Our family also makes use of the most environmentally harmless kind of transportation...
As we work
All adult members of our families spend much of their time working remotely via internet. Thus we reduce the number of everyday voyages to the city center or long-distance journeys. For instance, instead of flying to the international meetings, Igor, who was involved in the Arctic project, often chose Skype conferences instead. Alexey uses remote teaching technologies with his students. Natalia gives online lectures to pedagogues. She asks her students not to waste paper printing out their works, and checks the assignments in digital form. If prints on paper are necessary, let the students do it on both sides of the paper sheet. This way her students learn to shorten their “environmental footprint”. Natalya prepares diplomas for the participants of the OMEP Project, chooses the digital option for the winners of the contest. We ourselves prefer pens and notebooks of recycled materials, and recommend the same to our students.
As we create
Being creative is a very significant prerequisite for ESD and children's development in general. By all means many gifts and toys can be bought in a shop. Sometimes, however, we make gifts with our own hands. It's amusing, costs less, and, what's essential, makes them unique for the person we give them to. We stage home performances and make the setting and costumes from the used things we've got at hand. For example, for many years we've been making up stories (a full-fledged saga by now) about little colored horses, and illustrated them.
Our experience has shown that the best source of creativity is waste material, that would otherwise go into the trash container.
As we learn
We understand the meaning of the phrase “Education through the whole life”. The elder and the younger members of our family discover new knowledge about sparing resources and energy. During every trip to another country we try to visit scientific museums, where the latest achievements in sustainable development are demonstrated. Igor took the courses of the Ecological Forest School in Luleo, Sweden and ESD courses in Policy Makers. Nika and Yana are eagerly studying “environmental life style” at the ecocenter in the Vorobyevy Gory national park and Moscow State University park. We're learning about the environmentally friendly technologies and materials at various exhibitions.
As we teach
We think that family is the basic "school" for a child. Small children learn, in the first place, thanks to adults around them and to the environment in which they live. We teach chidren when walking outdoors, visit museums and theaters, read books and make our own stories, set home performances. For example, when we see a puddle, we can make a story about an underwater kingdom. We count leaves, make cartoons for our own stories. We take children's questions seriously and try to be their partners, supporting children's inquisitiveness, independence and initiative; we also help children to discover the unusual in common things, to admire nature, to take pleasure in travelling. And we also teach them to enjoy all these things!
As we travel
On a journey all of us, the younger and the elder members of the family, learn about biodiversity and cultural diversity of the places we visit across Europe and Asia. We study plants and animals, both on land and in the sea. We always visit zoos, botanical gardens, museums, parks, ocean parks, environmental centers. We feel lack of water in countries with warm climate, learn new ways of recycling waste in different countries, see how education varies across different nations. When possible we choose to move on foot or on a bicycle.
As we dispose of waste
First of all we want to decrease the amount of waste we through away: we buy less packaged food and goods, we try to take a backpack or a cloth bag when we go shopping, so that we don't have to buy a plastic bag, we select packaging with “recycled” signs on it, engage in book sharing, share old clothes, sort out waste (if that is an option), if we can, use waste for our home needs or … to create new things with our children!
As we tend our kitchen garden
Over 50 years ago the eldest or our family, the great grandfather of the children, has acquired a plot of land for a summer cottage, on which he grew fruits and vegetables. When Alexey and Valera were still schoolchildren, we made a project “Laws of Nature on A Garden Plot”, thus viewing it as an ecosystem, and developed guidelines for better farming, based on ecological laws. The project was presented by Valera at the International School Ecological Olympiad in Turkey, and won the silver medal. Many years have passed since, and the summer cottage changed a lot. So we decided to repeat the research, involving the youngest generation, and compare the results from over a decade.
As we support playing
We agree the thesis that playing is child's leading activity. Without playing there is no childhood! Through a game child learns, communicates, creates the world of her own imagination...
Playing prepares children for school (and life in general) better than special study groups. How do we support playing in our family? We create environment for it, try not to interrupt children's games and give children an opportunity and time for playing, play along with them (during our travels, on vacation, in museums, in a sandbox, in a forest, at the seaside - virtually anywhere). Together we invent new didactic and active games, find things for use in playing, make our own toys, create setting for using proxy toys (that helps to develop imagination), remember our own childhood and games, help children advance the game plot (if needed), show respect to children's playing, because we think that games must be taken seriously!
As we go into the forest
Natalya and Igor chose to settle close to a forest. They've been visiting it for many years, together with their children and grandchildren, whenever they come for a visit. The forest turned out to provide not only a fine route for a stroll, but also a perfect ground for educating children! Moreover, Natalya and Igor decided to study the forest and everything it is linked to. That's how the project “Our Forest” started.
As we visit the marsh
There is a marsh close to the apartment of Natalya and Igor's. Not everyone would dare to cross it without special training. But, professionally, we know the safe paths, and sometimes take our youngest with us. For a young child it's a great adventure to come to a real marsh! And for us the forest sphagnum marsh is an interesting object for research. There you can meet a crossbill's chick, or a bumblebee's nest. See cranberry in bloom or even taste the ripe berries. Touch the cruel carnivorous sundew plant, jump from one hillock to another, carefully. The surface of the marsh bends beneath our feet, and that makes the tours across it even more exciting. But the most important thing is that children learn to understand importance of ecosystems like this.
As we learn and grow plants
Everyone of us has grown something in one's life – a tree or a bush, vegetables in a kitchen garden. Aya, Nika and Yana took part in planting since their early childhood. And they also have (or used to have) their own, personal plants, of which they took special care. Lately we all took part in tree-planting campaigns, and then decided to plant acorns ourselves. Together with children we study seeds: blowing on the dandelion's parachutes and on maple's seeds, study acorns and chestnuts. Because it's extremely important to keep children interested in the world of plants and support their wish for plants to grow around them.
As we learn and support animals
One of the tasks of sustainable development is preservation of biodiversity. It is an important thing to understand both for adults and for children. Although we might not enjoy the company of some animals, we must understand that all of them are necessary on our planet, and each of them has its own role in nature. Many of us had home pets in our childhood. Aya and Nika had guinea pigs, one of which became a teaching film star, and did really well. We observe animals during a walk, make feeders for birds and squirrels for the winter. We also try to save animals in unexpected circumstances. For instance, we move away earthworms from walking paths, remove toads from bicycle tracks, transfer frogspawn from thinning puddles into deeper waters.
As we learn and support biodiversity
Preservation of biodiversity is a major task of sustainable development. In our opinion, any family is able to contribute to its solution. In order to preserve biodiversity, one needs knowledge. For example, knowledge of plants and of their varieties. That's why we visit botanical gardens, natural parks and zoos, ocean parks, aquariums, natural science museums in different cities, follow ecological trails and create them ourselves
As we reuse wasted packages
Every day we throw away many things that could've been put to use. For instance, cardboard boxes from tea could be used for keeping dry food in the kitchen (which means we don't buy new containers), while boxes from chocolates could become … our own collection of stones! Lots of packaging can be perfectly used for playing, coloring, making jewelry for kids, toys and other things. It all depends on our creative thinking and time we are ready to spare.
As we spare resources
We try to spare energy in many ways. We use energy-saving lamps and equipment, when possible - small local sources of light instead of one bright lamp in the middle of a room, try not to remember not to leave chargers and electric appliances plugged into power outlets, use inertia of heating of electric stove while food is still cooking, use some things that work on solar power or on power of our hands, like flashlights, calculators and the like. During lessons or lectures we always set our devices into the “sleeping” mode, and remind our students to do likewise.
As we learn and support cultural diversity
We study culture and history of different nations when we travel and communicate with people, through studying languages, visiting museums. We teach children to respect other people's points of view and traditions. When we go to another country, we try to learn at least a couple of words in local language. We understand that it's the family, where the dialog of generations starts and values and traditions are passed on through generations. Not only our great-grandmother and great-grandfather teach our youngest kids, but also the younger generation helps the older ones use new technologies. Many members of our family like to draw and play musical instruments. Sometimes we have our own “home theater”. And we try to study how nature is reflected in cultural peculiarities.
As we cook and eat
Whenever possible, we try to cook our meal of products that haven't been brought from far abroad. We ourselves try not to leave food on the plates and teach our youngest members the same thing. When food has some special design and looks beautiful, children are happy to eat it all. And making unusual sandwiches, for example, is also amusing and creative. Berries and mushrooms picked in the forest make delicious dishes. Fruits and vegetables from the kitchen garden bring more variety to our everyday menu in summer and in autumn. Two of us are mostly vegetarian.
