Environmental Education

I have a meeting brainstorming an appropriate module on environmental education for the kindergarten operators and teachers in Petaling Jaya. I was made to understand that environmental conservation and sustainable development is not a formal subject to be taught in kindergarten, but rather a co-curriculum topic and also subjected to the liking of principals and teachers. It is an option.

While environmental conservation is a responsibility for everyone in which everyone has to raise his/her awareness, to improve knowledge and skills as well as taking action, many capacity building programmes for stakeholders have not included the pre-school children, those in the nursery and kindergartens. Inculcating good value on environment conservation for children during this age category is more effective and long lasting compared to the primary and secondary school level. As children in a time to absorb everything they learn and more importantly with no academic performance based evaluation is demanded from them, with proper guidance they tend to convert what they have learned into practice and value in life.

We discussed over making the session interesting and informative so that teachers can applied it into their syllabus. This include the techniques and approaches suitable with children. For example, making art piece with creativity using the recyclable items. In order to sustain the momentum and get them to initiate some programmes or activities, we have also suggested to provide incentives for the participating kindergartens. Subsequently an evaluation for selecting 3 kindergartens with good environmental practice will be carried out.

I am thankful to Ecoknights, GEC and DANIDA-SWMC for providing such valuable inputs. Hopefully what we have planned will stimulate more similar initiatives.