Move4Nature

The Move4Nature project was developed by the Carpathian Sustainable Education Network (CASALEN), with guidance from UNEP – Interim Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention (ISCC), Environment and School Initiatives (ENSI), and support by the international corporate social responsibility initiative OMV Move & Help.

The Move4Nature project resulted in a Teacher Training programmeon Education for Sustainable Development, oriented towards the schools in the rural mountainous areas.

Initiated in Romania in June 2008, the programme brought teachers from various disciplines, school inspectorates, and the Ministry of Education Research and Innovation and a vibrant NGO community, to work together, on a programme focused on the Carpathian environment. The project has become an initial stage of a network between the teachers and activists, who are now planning on expanding it to continue cooperation among schools in the mountain areas of Romania and in other Carpathian countries.

The Project Objectives:

Encouraging approaches to sustainable management of the mountain areas through enabling the mountain communities:

• to develop the attitudes, skills, and knowledge
• to make informed decisions for the benefit of themselves and others, and
• to act upon these decisions, in preserving the unique cultural and natural features of their surroundings.

Working with schools in the rural mountainous areas

• Mainstreaming protection and sustainable development of the Mountain regions into the teaching practices
• Producing and distributing teaching materials
• Training teachers to apply ESD as an interactive approach in the classroom and in the protected areas.

The project resulted in the following developments:

1. A network of project partners and professionals interested in ESD in the mountains

The goal of the network is to allow continuous communication and experience exchange between the interested partners: through their feedback, comments and inputs into the developed materials and training.

2. An informative and interactive Teacher Training Tour in several areas of Romania

The Training Tour consisted of teacher trainings in six locations of Romania– involving more than 40 schools and more than a 100 teachers of a variety of disciplines from the rural mountainous areas.

The Training Tour:

1. Brought together teachers, school inspectorates and educators from NGOs and protected areas;
2. Introduced the Carpathian ESD concepts and tools;
3. Inspired cooperation and joint work on ESD in the local mountainous areas.

3. A Carpathian ESD Teacher Training Tool Kit

The Tool Kit aims to introduce the Carpathian Convention and its main principles of ecosystem-based thinking, cooperation and sustainable development to the rural mountain communities.

The Tool Kit guides the teachers and students to discover:

• The local resources and sustainable development challenges,
• The value of natural and cultural components
• How to improve the local community and
• How to profit from the local resources in a sustainable way.

The Romanian version has been distributed to the training participants, who are using the Tool Kit in their Work, and will be presenting their activities during the relevant Romanian an regional ESD events.

The English version has been developed on the basis of the original Romanian Tool Kit, and adjusted to the regional Carpathian context, in order to promote the adaptation, translation, use of the Tool Kit in other countries of the Carpathians and other Mountain regions.

The main activity of the Tool Kit: designing a local nature trail (the study trail)
The teachers are guided to work with the students to make a “trail” representative of their local part in the Carpathians.
The chapters of the Tool Kit, accompanied by regional maps, guide the teachers and students to find possible “Key Points” in the school surroundings, such as

• the unique natural and cultural sites or
• areas of concern

The chapters also suggest a variety of educational activities in connection with the “Key Points”.
Connecting these “Key Points” together would complete the local study trail.
Displaying the trails on the map can create a network of trails throughout the Carpathians and other mountainous areas

Presentations of the trails made by the teachers are available on the UNEP Vienna ISCC - ESD Slideshare page.

For More Information:
More information can be found in English on the website of the Carpathian Sustainable Learning Network: CASALEN Move4Nature and in Romanian on the webpage of the Romanian partner and organizer Healthy Environment Regional Organization: HERO Move4Nature