The Move4Nature Teacher Training

The Move4Nature Teacher Training Project on Education for Sustainable Development is a training project oriented towards the schools in the rural mountainous areas, developed in order to acknowledge the importance of education for sustainable development, based on its relevance to the Carpathian Convention, to introduce the concept of the Carpathian Ecoregion to the rural mountainous schools of the Carpathian countries, and to encourage critical thinking about the present use of natural and cultural heritage of the Carpathians in order to contribute to the sustainable development of the Carpathians.

The project is being developed by CASALEN, with guidance from UNEP – ISCC, in partnership with Environment and School Initiatives (ENSI), and support by the international corporate social responsibility initiative OMV Move & Help.

The Move4Nature was initiated at the second meeting of the Carpathian Sustainable Education Network, held at the margins of the Second Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Carpathian Convention (COP2), on June 17-19, 2008, in Bucharest, Romania, which provided the necessary regional context to the meeting and facilitated participation by and inputs from a variety of Carpathian partners engaged in ESD activities. UNEP Vienna - Interim Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention (UNEP Vienna – ISCC), facilitated the necessary connections to the Ministries of the Carpathian countries and the relevant contacts among the Carpathian ESD partners to support CASALEN in the development of the project. In the final decisions of the COP 2, the Parties acknowledged support and appreciation for the CASALEN initiative and requested UNEP Vienna - ISCC to assist its further development and implementation.

The Move4Nature is aimed at:

• Mainstreaming protection and sustainable development of the Carpathian Mountains into the teaching practices and into the curriculum of the Carpathian schools;
• Distributing teaching materials based on the Carpathian Mountain sustainable development in connection to the Carpathian Convention, to schools in rural mountainous areas;
• Training a number of teachers from the rural mountainous areas to apply education for sustainable development as an interactive approach in the classroom and in the protected areas.

So far, the project activities started in Romania, in cooperation and support from the Ministry of Education, Research and Innovation of Romania School Inspectorates and administrations, local NGOs and protected areas, coordinated by the CASALEN Romanian partner Healthy Environment Regional Organization - HERO. The project progress, time-table and steps are described in the Move4Nature Report May 2005.

An informative and interactive Teacher Training Tour in several areas of Romania took place in May 2009 in 6 locations throughout the Romanian Carpathians. Summary of the trainings can be found in the Move4Nature June 2009 Update. Information about the schools participating in the Training Tour as well as follow-up in Romania is available on the HERO web-site.

To address the second aim of the programme, CASALEN is developing the teaching materials in the form of the Carpathian Mountain ESD Tool Kit.

A comprehensive summary report of the project with information about the Teacher Training and the Tool Kit structure, has been produced by UNEP – ISCC, with contribution by CASALEN and Romanian Partners, and is available in the PDF format.