SEED Partner Meeting February 28 th to March 3 rd, 2003 Weilburg/Germany Minutes of the meeting
Imprint: SEED Partner Meeting, February/March 2003 Editor: EU COMENIUS 3 network 100530-CP1-2002-1-AT-COMENIUS-C3 School Development through Environmental Education (SEED) Coordination: Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, Dept. V/11c Environmental Education Affairs Minoritenplatz 5, A-1014 Vienna / Austria e-mail: guenther.pfaffenwimmer@bmbwk.gv.at; johannes.tschapka@seed-eu.net Organiser : The Annual General Partner Meeting of SEED in 2003 was organised by the German SEED partner Hessisches Landesinstitut für Pädagogik (HELP) in Weilburg / Germany. 2
List of participants: Christine Affolter CH (Member) Finn Mogensen DK (Partner) Dirk Coolsaet BE (Partner) Wolf v. Mutius DE (Member) Eva Csobod HU (Member) Evalotta Nyander SE (Partner) Majda Hadji SLO (Partner) Eero Nurminen FI (Member) Peter Havas HU (Partner) Günther Pfaffenwimmer AT (Partner) Mervi Heinonen FI (Partner) Regina Reiter AT (Partner) Lea Houtsonen FI (Partner) Astrid Sandas NO (Partner) Karen Junker NO (Partner) Dominique Schmit LU (Partner) Regula Kyburz-Graber CH (Member) Willy Sleurs BE (Partner) Sun-Kyung Lee KR (Member) Syd Smith AU (Member) Janet Looney - OECD-CERI Daniella Tilbury AU (Evaluator) Reiner Mathar - DE (Partner) Johannes Tschapka AT (Partner) Michela Mayer IT (Partner) Attila Varga HU (Partner) 3
SEED NETWORK The European COMENIUS 3 network, School Development through Environmental Education (SEED) is a group of educational authorities and institutes who promote Environmental Education as a driving force for School Development. Within the 14 European SEED partner countries and 5 SEED member countries, Environmental Education fosters an innovative culture of teaching and learning that promotes Education for Sustainability. SEED invites schools, teacher education institutes and educational authorities to work together, to learn from each other s experiences and to accumulate their knowledge in their quest in working towards sustainable development. TARGETS Because of the creation of the COMENIUS 3 networks, SEED is able to encourage co-operation among its stakeholders by working on existing, completed and prospective COMENIUS projects. Stakeholders associated with the network benefit from these environmental education developments. SEED also facilitates a close dialogue and better understanding among policy makers and practitioners in the various education systems. The ultimate target group is the pupils who benefit from innovative teaching practices and modern teaching and learning pedagogies. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS OF SEED According to the contract with the European Commission, the 24 partner organisations of SEED hold Annual General Partner Meetings to adopt the workplan, to develop the thematic workshops and to prepare the joint communication tools. Additionally the Annual General Partner Meetings give a floor for internal evaluation and thematically exchange. 4
Decisions, discussions and presentations COMENIUS 1 ACTIONS Austria should renew contacts to the COMENIUS I schools who participated at the Reichenau conference December 2002, asking if the had a successful application and ask them of a copy of their application for the SEED documentation (esp. the Austrian schools, e.g. Dir. Ucsnik and her activities and training towards Action Research) Italy and SEED will send a letter to COMENIUS I schools and to National Agencies with Information about Italian SEED workshop April 2004, especially for the participants of the Reichenau conference. It was agreed from SEED secretariat to newly send the COMENIUS 1 Contact seminar Power Point Presentations of Reichenau conference to all partners. Austria will provide the documentation/report about the ARION Study Visit to all partners and present it on the SEED web site. The SEED secretariat will send a letter to National agencies to require COMENIUS I and II project on Environmental Education, Education for Sustainable Development and School Development. COMENIUS 2 ACTIONS It was agreed to have at the conference in Szeged as well an ENSI conference as well as a COMENIUS II contact seminar, a COMENIUS II preparatory visit and a COMENIUS I partner meeting of those schools who have Hungarian partners in their project developed in Reichenau/Austria, December 2002. The SEED activities during that conference are part of the SEED contract with the European Commission. The person in charge for SEED is Mr. Attila Varga from the Hungarian SEED partner OKI. It was agreed to send all relevant e-mail adresses to Attila Varga and to send in case studies until the end of April, based on a common structure of the Peter Posch paper. Eight case studies are the basic material for the conference. The conference document will show selected case studies. The publication after the conference will include all case studies provided including the revision process. The case studies should be put on the web sites of ENSI and SEED as down load. 5
As lecturers at the Szeged conference the following persons will be contacted by the organiser: Regula Kyburz-Graber, Ian Robottom, Paul Hart, Franz Rauch, Peter Posch, Phil Smith, Gabor Halasz. STUDENT MOBILITY SEED secretariat proposed to send a questionnaire to all National Socrates Agencies (and ENSI and SEED partners) concerning the respective situation on student mobility. Austria will check the (Austrian) student mobility together with the Austrian Socrates bureau (Ms. Birgit Schattenmann) and provide this information to all partners in respect of the coming COMENIUS 2 contact seminar in Szeged. QUALITY INDICATORS It was decided to formulate statements of SEED (as well as ENSI) to the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development of the UN Assembly 2005 2015 based on the results of the Quality Indicator study. (expected or hope for outcomes, specific focuses, action competence, participation) On basis of such a paper the national commissions of UNESCO should be contacted Austria was asked to collect a literature list for the Qualitiy Indicators study. A person in charge has to be nominated by August 2003. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION The e-mail list should be enlarged with the addresses from Mervi (Finland) and Regina Steiner (Austria). EXTERNAL COMMUNICATION The Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture should inform the Austrian Embassy at the OECD in Paris about ENSI secretariat time and SEED. PARTNERS Lea Houtsonen/Finland has contact to the Geographical Association: Ask her to deliver information about SEED as she promised to do for ENSI 6
MEMBERS It was recommended to establish SEED contacts to South Korea via Prof. Dr. Sun-Kyung Lee, (Cheongju National Universtiy of Education, 135 Sugok, Heungdok Ku, Cheongju 361 712, Chungbuk, south Korea; Tel.: 0082 43 299 0750; e-mail: sklee@cje.ac.kr) and with the Korean support contact possible other Asian Environmental Education and Education for Sustainable Development partners. Another recommend member for SEED would be the Canadian Association of Environmental Education in Quebec. Switzerland agreed to send time calculation scheme to SEED secretariat as grid for all partners involved. (1680 hrs/year; 38,5 hrs/week, 7 ½ hrs/day) Austria agrees to send the Austrian National Strategy on Sustainable Development to Prof. Dr. Daniella Tilbury and Sun-Kyung Lee. RELATION SEED AND ENSI It was clearly stated that the members of the international decentralised OECD/CERI Network Environment and School Initiatives ENSI developed together with associate partners from 2000 to 2002 an European network in the frame of the SOCRATES education action COMENIUS 3 of the European Commission. The network has been called School Development through Environmental Education (SEED), because the results of the ENSI conferences From Pilot to the Mainstream 1999 in Hadeland /Norway and Learnscape Across the Globe 2001 in Reichenau / Austria enforced ENSI to emphasise on the interface of those issues. So SEED derived respectively based on the projects ECO-Schools, Mainstreaming and Teacher Education. 7
EVALUATION OF SEED Any communication should be sent CC to Daniella Tilbury. The SEED secretariat will send the addresses of the key informants group to Daniella. The SEED partner meeting nominated the following key informants group: SEED steering group: Hungary/Attila Varga Nartional Agency: Austria/Birgit Schattenmann School Authority: Norway/Astrid Sandas Researchers: Switzerland: Regula Kyburz-Graber Teacher Training: SLO/Majda Nagij BE/Willi Sleurs DE/Reiner Mathar Student Teachers:... Head Teachers: Sweden Teachers and students: IT Fin: Mervi For the evaluation Ms. Tilbury needs from the SEED secretariat: - A report on the partner meeting in Weilburg including a personal reflection - A report on the COMENIUS I contact seminar in Reichenau including a personal reflections - A report on the ARION Study visit seminar in Vienna including a personal reflections Reflective questions: - What did I like about the SEED meeting? - What needs improving? Recommendation: At the beginning of the next meeting put forward the SEED aims and think about how the meeting supports (supported) to reach the aims. Write down the words, circulate to all and eventually make sentences. Date and location of the next SEED Steering Group Meeting 2003 As agreed in the contract with the EC the next Steering Group Meeting will take place on September 5 th to 7 th, 2003 in Szeged/Hungary. Date and location of the next General Partner Meeting of SEED 2003 According to the decision, to combine the German SEED conference 2004 with the General Partner Meeting 2004 the AGM 2004 will be held in September, 2004 in Kassel /Germany. The meeting was adjourned at 12.30 p.m. on Monday, March 3 rd, 2003. 8
SEED NETWORK The European COMENIUS 3 network, "School Development through Environmental Education" (SEED) is a group of educational authorities and institutes who promote Environmental Education as a driving force for School Development. Within the 14 European SEED partner countries and 6 SEED member countries, Environmental Education fosters an innovative culture of teaching and learning that promotes Education for Sustainability. PARTNERS: Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture / Austria Austrian Forum for Environmental Education / Austria Education Highway (Innovation Centre for School and New Technology) / Austria University of Klagenfurt, Centre for interdisciplinary Research and Education, Department of School and Societal Learning / Austria Ministry of the Flemish Community, Service for Educational Development / Belgium RAGO, Council for Community Education / Belgium Hessian State Institute for Education / Germany Danish University of Education / Denmark University College of West Jutland / Denmark Autonomous University of Barcelona, Faculty of Educational Sciences / Spain Finnish National Board of Education / Finland University of Joensuu, Savonlinna, Department of Teacher Education / Finland National Institute for Public Education / Hungary National Institute for the Evaluation of the Educational System / Italy University of Milan / Italy Ministry for Education, Vocational Training and Sports / Luxembourg SLO, Netherlands Institute for Curriculum Development / Netherlands Agency for Educational Design / Netherlands National Board of Education / Norway Norwegian National Education Office, Aust-Agder County / Norway Swedish National Agency for School Improvement / Sweden National Education Institute / Slovenia Office for Standards in Education / United Kingdom Nottingham Trent University, Faculty of Education / United Kingdom MEMBERS: New South Wales Department of Education and Training /Australia University of Regina, Faculty of Education /Canada Tokyo Gakugei University, Institute for Environmental Education / Japan Cheongju National University of Education / Republic of Korea Massey University, College of Education / New Zealand Swiss Foundation for Environmental Education / Switzerland University College of Solothurn / Switzerland University of Zurich, Institute for Teacher Education / Switzerland In collaboration with