Zambia

The Zambia Forestry Institution Aimed to establish an integrated approach to Beekeeping focusing particularly on unemployed youths, scholar’s men, and women. Their change project aims to enhance participation of different stakeholders in order advance environmental protection. This is achieved through the establishment of a demonstration site that will be used for educational tours. One of their aims is to ultimately enhance vocational skills using Beekeeping curricula. So far results from their activities have been a reduction in deforestation, improvement of food security for local communities, improved teamwork, new source of income for the institution from the sale of honey, improved nutrition and the establishment of a multi segmented apiary that is also used to enhance learning aspects in primary and secondary education schools around the geography syllabus.

Exotic and indigenous fruits in a landscaped nursery

The Charles Lwaanga College of Education (Chisekesi) aims to Create a fruit and ornamental plant nursery that will be used to supply the College and surrounding community for the purpose of reviving the College Orchards and Bee keeping. Their primary aim is to mainstream sustainability education through environmental restoration on their local campus. How they will achieve this will be by the planting of fruit and ornamental trees in campus and surrounding community using an inter-groping management technique of indigenous and exotic plants.  Indigenous horticulture practices will be used to revive the existing College Orchards and nearby community areas. The College will seek to engage community stakeholder buy-in with traditional and civic leaders for sustainable development.

So far, they have held a College Environmental Day on 18^th December 2020 where 300 trees were planted. Environmental Day was shared with the local community through local radio stations and College website. Beehive shelves have since been built, and one of them has been occupied by bees as well as one out of the two target orchards, one has been fenced and an irrigation system has been installed.

Interactive teaching materials for ease of reading to promote ESD

The Kitwe College of Education aims to promote Education for Sustainable Development through active learner involvement using interactive teaching and learning materials made from locally available resources. What they have found is that poor pedagogical skills by teacher trainers does not prepare teacher-learners in using appropriate pedagogy to foster sustainability in learners. The next stage consisted of recruiting four additional lecturers into the change project to create a vibrant community of practice that was diverse in thinking and would provide rich regenerative data. One of key issues discussed was the need to build on and enhance existing teaching models and practices using a student-centered approach that encourage active engagement through active learning activities bridging the gap between theory and practice.

Bridging the gap between practice, curriculum, and pedagogy

The Malcolm Moffat College of Education (Serenje) aims to model learner centered pedagogies through teacher educators (Chibuye). To establish Communities of Practice that aims to bridge the identified gaps between practice, curriculum, and pedagogy in the implementation of ESD they have decided to design a curriculum template. This meant designing curriculum model that incorporated ESD. The aim is to ensure that trainee teachers are capacitated with practical and engaged teaching methods in facilitating learner centered lessons. Overall, the Change Project will assist in creating and re-working through innovative ways ESD learner centered lessons.

There has been successful adoption of the Change Project by the College management which resulted in the opportunity to find innovative ways to integrate the Change Projects into the College’s curriculum. The establishment of an ESD Community of Practice in the College has enabled Trainee students to practice pedagogical approaches of their choice during presentations using selected topics from the Teacher Education curriculum. Lesson plan demonstrations had emphasis on good pedagogical approaches were conducted at class level, interclass level and institutional level and their reviews conducted soon afterwards.

Turning compost into environmental and social benefits

The St. Mary College of Education (Mbala) change project aims to promote awareness on production and uses of compost manure for the economic, environmental and social benefits on ESD (the use of manure for market gardening). To achieve this they have integrated sustainable development into teacher education programs (educational institutions/ schools) in line with survival skills (pragmatic skills) through the production and use of organic manure for market gardening. As a training institution COP member, we are spearheading the process of managing the production of compost manure and integrate it into the college curriculum.

The Change Project aims to engage in a process of capacity building through the implementation of environmentally friendly and sustainability-oriented practices for the College’s staff, student-teachers, and broader community. The demonstration sites will be used phases. Towards the end of the year 2020, we established a vegetable (cabbages and tomatoes) garden as a pilot project. The vegetables were grown using organic manure only. They have engaged in multi-stakeholder meetings. They have designed and distributed teacher-student assignments on ESD and formed teacher-students club to spearhead on the issue of ESD.

The high-level impact of eco-offices in Lusaka

The University of Zambia (Lusaka) aims to create sustainable eco offices in collaboration with the UNZA- School of Education. To achieve this, they highlighted and zoned in on the unsustainable use of paper and use of energy resources. Poor waste disposals and unsustainable use of electric equipment and the use of cleaning agents that not eco friendly.

The aim was to educate lecturers and non-academic staff on eco offices. This has meant engaging in the building back better policy framework by conducting UNZA strategic plan policy review. This will be accompanied by an office audit that will be aimed at creating greening offices. This process is to include: the identification of stakeholders, the introduction of innovative systems in the introduction of paperless offices, the use of energy efficient appliances. The activities so far include Document reviews, Office audits, Identification of stakeholders, Network colour printers for communal printing are now used where necessary. Clearing of unwanted stuff from offices is in progress and the use of electronic memos has started. Printing on both sides of paper has also begun.

Integration of ESD principles in Pedagogy and Assessment Strategies

The Mukuba University (Kitwe) Change Project aims to identify content that speaks to ESD in our courses that advances transformative and transgressive methodologies. The Change Project is geared towards creating a conducive environment that motives and empower students towards change in the sustainable implementation of ESD.

This Change Project potentially has the capacity of a paradigm shift from focusing on knowledge (examination) to focusing on all pillars of education.  A situational analysis of the curriculum implementation at Mukuba University is aimed at building ESD capacity among staff. They established a community of practice and designed a CoP that was underpinned by ESD principles. Thus far they have through curriculum development been able to share experiences with the appropriate forums such as review/body of studies/department meeting in order to influence curriculum change. The aim is upscale activities within the College.

Identified courses that has content to speak to ESD principles and SD: All methods courses; Agric, Geo, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics.