29-31 March 2016
The Fundisa for Change teacher education program, through one of its partners, Delta Environmental Centre, conducted a course on climate change for Grade 12 teachers. The teachers were drawn from Geography and Life Sciences teaching areas from some schools in Gauteng Province.
The course was conducted from the 29-31 March 2016 at the Delta Environment Centre in Johannesburg. Caleb Mandikonza went to observe and facilitate on the course as part of the accreditation and partnership agreement. Mandikonza said the observation is a monitoring mechanism used by Fundisa for Change to ensure that the Fundisa for Change materials are being used as per the protocol of agreement.
The course sought to contribute to quality teaching and learning in South African schools. In his presentation, Mandikonza mentioned that environmental degradation is very high in such a developing country as South Africa and that the environment is changing very fast.
He highlighted the role of education and teachers’ responsibility to build skills in environmental education and for the younger generation to envision a new world and start working towards it. He said that since environment was already in the curriculum, the training sought to support teachers to bring out environmental content and practice in their curricula activities. Use of environmental learning to teach disciplinary content would contribute to quality teaching and learning in South African schools.
“The key outcomes of the curriculum for a better world and more specifically a better South Africa thus include equity, sustainability, resilience, adaptation, transformative and transgressive learning which should lead to desired transformation for sustainability”, said Mandikonza.
Article by Patience Shawarira