ASSISI
ASSISI'S ROLE IN CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABILITY
Catholic Earthcare's Sustainability initiative, ASSISI (A Strategic, Systems based, Integrated Sustainability Initiative) is for schools, parishes, congregations and Catholic organisations and will encourage the formation of faith based learning communities that will rely on Catholic spirituality, principles and values to guide the communities' responses to the sustainability challenges facing us all.
Every learning community that emerges will be unique and have it's own culture, needs and challenges. In a typical school community, the future direction of the whole area of Education for Sustainability is considered with a vision emerging that will evoke the spiritual motivation to live sustainably, the skills, knowledge, understandings and attitudes of students and the goal of becoming a sustainable school over time.
Within the school environment, there seems to be good agreement now that the best student and school community outcomes will emerge if the environmental and sustainability issues, activities and plans of the school involve the students and become teaching and learning experiences for them. Thus, across the school dimensions of Whole School Planning
- Curriculum
- Management of Resources
- Management of School Grounds
- Community Involvement
- Religious education
A spiritually motivated, planned and integrated sustainability initiative emerges and is placed on a continuous improvement basis over time. The accepted practice for monitoring and managing progress is through the use of a School Environmental Management Plan. In addition to this, in 2009, ASSISI will offer tools such as an ecological footprint calculator and a carbon management database that enables ongoing monitoring of each schools carbon emissions.
Schools all over Australia are at different stages of progress and, generally speaking, are moving in the same direction. Many schools that have been active with this approach to Education for Sustainability for some 5 to 10 years have shared their experiences in various forums and for those schools that are in the early stages of progress, there are some valuable insights on issues that have had positive impacts on the process that are worth considering.
Some of these insights are
- The establishment of a learning community to re-invigorate the Education for Sustainability approach for the school is complemented well by passion building initiatives involving the majority of students on a regular and frequent basis. These initiatives work best if they are achievable, measureable and thus reportable, save money and are visible and ongoing over time. People have observed that the student passion is contagious and builds enthusiasm in the staff and in their homes.
- Clearly, the support of the Principal, Senior Executive and School Board if applicable is critical to the success of the re-invigoration process. Without the commitment and enthusiasm of the decision makers, progress is difficult.
- Plans need to be robust enough and responsibilities spread widely enough to withstand the changes in staffing that will naturally occur.
- An early review of the Religious calendar for the year and suitable inclusions if necessary will reinforce the strong influence of spiritual motivation to the actions being taken.
- Involvement from local community groups such as the local council and links to some of the many supporting bodies such as Sustainable Schools, NSW, are very important as they provide specialized knowledge and practical experience that is very helpful to the process over time.
- Communication of plans, reporting of successes, recognition of effort from students and staff and celebration of progress in keeping with the ethos and culture of the school is important to sustaining enthusiasm over time.
- In the always difficult area of funding, budgets need to be agreed to a level that meets the level of progress planned. Changes in behaviour in the use of resources and relatively small sums of money can and have lead to significant savings which can help fund the process over time.
- Schools that are well advanced in the re-invigoration process are enjoying the benefits of an enhanced, environmentally responsible image with many parents considering the enrolment of their children seeing this in a positive light.
By: Ken S Brown
To find out more about ASSISI for Schools click
Assisi Briefing Paper 12.09.08.pdf to download the (revised)
briefing document.
[Download=255KB]
A (revised) visual model of ASSISI is also available:
ASSISI
Model .pdf
[Download=1.340MB]
To register your interest in this sustainability initiative complete your details in the registration box below and click 'submit'.*Required information.
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