The Project
We believe the environment is everyone’s problem and we depend on people of all parts of the world to conserve natural resources for the future.
Environmental Education for Children and Youth in the World
The project Environmental Education for Children and Youth in the World was conceived as a way to educate about the environment while having fun and motivating. In its project structure, it first involves the child or young person with environmental problems, then explain them and ultimately motivate the pursuit of sustainable development through positive actions.
The project value nature as a common good of all Earth’s inhabitants of and promotes the identification of children and young with this concept, without compromising the pursuit of development. Environmental education is a way to improve the quality of life of people and nations, without prejudice to future generations.
The Challenge
Environmental problems pose in the new century the greatest and most urgent challenge that humanity must face. The continuous depletion of natural resources will make impossible life on Earth. Thus, we have no choice but to find a way to use the resources still available rationally while we try to create conditions for the use of new resources.
Environmental education has a fundamental role in this task and where the objective is fully met the required assimilation of knowledge, so that learning matches spontaneous action and is consistent with what has been learned. Sustainable development relies on environmental education that teaches how to use and conserve the natural resources to ensure the development opportunity also for future generations.
We aim high and that is why we have to think long term, preparing today’s children to act in the future as young workers, employers or entrepreneurs who are aware of the environment’s value know how to use their resources in a sustainable manner.
Awareness
The project goal is the awareness of environmental problems in elementary school through an attractive approach for the child, without neglecting the educational content.
The project aims to create a generation of children and youth, with a new mindset for nature conservation and its sustainable use. These children and young people will be prepared to influence people and motivate a change in their habits in order to preserve nature and protect the environment.
The project’s most ambitious goal is to create a bond between all children and young people in the world to defend environment. The local damage to the environment can bring changes that are harmful to everyone, such as the global warming.
Stages
The project was conceived in three stages, according to each of its three versions: a book of fiction, a comic booklet and a DVD with animation. All three versions tell the story “Sofia’s Mission on Planet Earth.”
The project is target to children and young people. The project provides an additional educational content for all three versions: extra issues for the book, additional classes for each chapter of the story told in DVD and the booklet.
Textbook Content
The project values the environment as matters of curriculum, treating it in all its essential aspects such as:
| • biodiversity • the history of man’s actions on the environment, • deforestation and desertification, • society of consumption and waste, • legacy of the Industrial Revolution and the current problem, • greenhouse gases and global warming, • water and the problem of scarcity, • action for the environment, • future ecological and sustainable development. |
The project is coordinated by the author of the book Sofia’s Mission on Planet Earth”, Elizabeth A. Ramos, with Master in Development, Innovation and Change (MiDIC – University of Bologna) and Diploma in Environmental Management (UFRJ)