Ambiente e Sustentabilidade | Capítulos/artigos em livros internacionais / Book chapters/papers in international books
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- Eco-Schools: development assessment toolPublication . Caeiro, Sandra; Gomes, João; Amador, FilomenaEco-Schools is an international programme for education for sustainability, which was first developed in the 1990s and implemented in Europe, America and Africa. It aims to implement Local Agenda 21, applying educational and environmental management concepts and ideas in the daily life of schools in the process. The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, which began in 2005, is a unique opportunity to put the issue on the national agenda, and the Eco-Schools Programme is an important tool for this purpose. The study herein reported aims to facilitate understanding of the successful implementation of this Programme's methodology via the development of an assessment tool that reflects the work done and facilitates further corrections and improvements of future activities. Based on qualitative and quantitative research, this involved a feedback survey given to about 150 Portuguese Eco-Schools. The research was undertaken between December 2007 and December 2008, and involved the national coordinators of the Eco-Schools Programme and the Regional Education Authority. The proposed tool monitors and evaluates the programme to be applied in Portuguese Eco-Schools. Its use will enable the school community to improve its implementation of the Eco-Schools Programme and to achieve greater pupil involvement, whilst achieving sustainability.
- Field activities within an environmental sciences program: a b-learning case studyPublication . Caeiro, Sandra; Oliveira, Carla Padrel de; Amador, Filomena; Martinho, Ana Paula; Caetano, Fernando J. P.A reflection on the use of fieldwork in environmental science programmes is conducted in this paper. It is generally agreed that for fieldwork to be effective, it must serve a clear purpose in the curriculum. For a good curriculum design, a fieldwork course must complement, enhance or extend an existing part of the curriculum or fulfil some major objective of the curriculum as a whole. Thus a successful integration of fieldwork within an undergraduate degree programme is particularly important. For an environmental science course delivered through online methodology, it becomes evident that special attention should be devoted to the design and implementation of such a course. If we consider the more general definition where the field is seen as the location, outside the classroom setting, where learning takes place, then fieldwork is the set of activities that will facilitate students’ learning. It is generally agreed that a field course is much more difficult to integrate than a set of activities closely related to a specific subject. However, in a distance-learning university it is not plausible that students perform this type of activity very often. Therefore, the field courses are designed as a stand-alone module. The current work analyzes the design of the course entitled Fieldwork II which is integrated in the undergraduate degree in Environmental Sciences at Universidade Aberta. Many issues have to be taken into account when designing such a course that encompasses legislative, pedagogical and logistical matters. An overview of the research work that has been developed on the pedagogical value of fieldwork is given. Taking into account the specific learning methodology adopted at Universidade Aberta, we also present a fieldwork model for environmental sciences in a context of a blended learning (b-learning) undergraduate programme. The organizational effectiveness of the model and students’ participation was assessed in two scholar years of a fieldwork course at Universidade Aberta. Also, the project assignment synopses were assessed in the context of education for sustainability. Finally, it should be stressed that fieldwork should be regarded as a form of learning which exploits the unique characteristics of the field environment to improve the student learning experience.
- Online learning for sustainability: the student perception in an environmental science post-graduationPublication . Nicolau, Paula Bacelar; Caeiro, Sandra; Martinho, Ana Paula; Amador, Filomena; Azeiteiro, Ulisses