KNOW Biodiversity

Environmental education is a process thatinculcates Awareness and Sensitivity about theenvironment; Knowledge and Understanding ofthe environment and its multitude challenges.The education aspect is about combining theawareness, sensitivity, knowledge andunderstanding aboutthe environment with thedynamic and transformational objectives ofAgenda 2030 which are about ensuring Attitudesof concern, Skills that help to identify thechallenges and solutions and thereafterthe active Participation of all concerned throughdecision-making and actions that lead toresolving the environmental challenges of ourtime, and what UN Secretary General AntonioGuterres so aptly terms “Making Peace withnature” as “the defining task of the 21stcentury.”Rethinking education for Sustainability in an eraof uncertainty says everything about theOpportunities and Challenges that we have onhand: the opportunity for action and thechallenge to accelerate action research andpreparedness for resilience and sustainability.There is no other way.The Berlin Declaration at the World Conferencefor Education for Sustainable Development(ESD)committed to “Ensure that ESD is a foundationalelement of our education systems at all levels,with environmental and climate action as a corecurriculum component, while maintaining aholistic perspective on ESD that recognizes theinterrelatedness of all dimensions of sustainabledevelopment;” while the UN SecretaryGeneralfears the ‘growing force and fury” with whichnature is striking back at the war humanity haswaged on nature, making 2020 one of the threewarmest years on record globally.Environmental education today also means usingscience, technology and ICTs for innovativesolutions such as learning the use of EarlyWarning systems, developing a climate-resilientinfrastructure, improved dry land agriculture andmangrove protection among other imperatives.Making ESD and environmental educationmandatory from early-childhood to higherlearning is a great place to startin ensuring an ‘alert and educated population’,which works together for humanity and thesurvival of all living things.As a UN agency with a mandate in science andeducation, UNESCO is highly committed toEnvironmental education. Some of ourinterventions on Environmental educationinvolves the development of edutainment mobileapplications to generate simple, creative andengaging ways of connecting andcommunicating with school children on water,climate change and disaster risk reduction.Together with the African Union and sister UNagencies, we developed the ‘Know Water’,‘Know Climate Change’ and ‘Know Disaster riskreduction’ to foster education on water, climatechange and disaster risk reduction.With the emergence of the internet and mobileapps, edutainment and gamification is becomingincreasingly important in the educational sector.With the rapid development of mobiletechnologiesand applications, games are now entering a newera where their purpose is no longer forentertainingonly but also for educating and informing.