Canada: Promoting environmental education in schools
Canada is blessed with many natural resources, but these are starting to come under threat.
An environmental journey
"Because we live in a large affluent country, most Canadians believe that our resources are unlimited," explains Catherine McVitty, Environmental and Corporate Affairs Manager at Unilever Canada.
Canada is beginning to count the cost of taking its environment for granted. Some communities are experiencing water shortages, and high car use is causing major air pollution in built-up areas.
Unilever is working to change Canadian attitudes, starting with tomorrow's generation. An educational resource was launched in 1997 to raise awareness of the personal impact that students have on the environment.
Individual action
The EcoVoyageurs programme, which fits with the core curriculum in Canada's 13 provinces, concentrates on five key areas: transportation, food, waste, water and packaging. Pupils are encouraged to consider ways of cutting their own 'footprint' in each area. The section on water, for example, ranges from tips on how to collect rainwater to a project to build a wetland area in school grounds.
"Most Canadians don't understand how their everyday living and habits impact the environment. By raising awareness among children about how their daily decisions affect the environment, EcoVoyageurs will hopefully lead them to be more conscious of the decisions they make," says Catherine.
Teachers testify to the programme's success. Josie Wilson is a teacher at Ashcroft Secondary School in British Columbia with first-hand experience of it. She uses the EcoVoyageurs materials to take her class on field trips to a nearby Indian reserve. Josie's pupils join members of the Salishan community in cleaning streams and river banks. In the process, they get a practical lesson in protecting the spawning grounds of indigenous salmon.
"The EcoVoyageurs Posters really make learning about the environmental footprint easy and enjoyable. The five-part breakdown is a wonderful way teach it," says Josie.
Changing attitudes
Many of the 15 000 other teachers who have used the EcoVoyageurs programme to date also note marked changes in pupils' attitudes to the environment. In one example, pupils at S Bruce Smith school in Edmonton, who have been taught the course, have reduced the school's use of paper by a fifth, increased use of public transport and staged a school eco-fair.
"By studying their environmental footprint, students are now re-evaluating the way they live and consume resources," says Jackie Underhill, a teacher at the school.
EcoVoyageurs is the only resource available to teachers in Canada that specifically introduces students to the concept of the ecological. It has won a number of awards and been adopted by several provincial school boards as part of the core curriculum.
The programme is funded by the Unilever Canada Foundation, a registered charity set up in 1995 to pursue our goal of bringing vitality to communities. As with all the Foundation's projects, EcoVoyageursaims to bring about positive change by encouraging a spirit of shared citizenship.
