Thursday, July 26, 2012

Hello and Good Bye, RIO + 20


It was an incredible trip to Rio de Janeiro in June (12 through 24). My husband and I were delegates of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable development. Michael was with the group of Ramapo colleagues and students attending the sessions on environmental issues and I was representing the KDP headquarters on the issues of "Education for Sustainable development." I was attending the sessions and workshops pertaining to the topics of education, youth and environment, and the role of teachers in designing and implementing the Education for Sustainable development curriculum. I was absorbing the information at the sessions and with the help of my mobile devices (iPad and iPhone) I was immediately posting the fragments on Facebook, Youtube or twitter. Here is my Rio + 20 FB(Facebook)album with some of the pictures. I was impressed with the opening speech of a 12y.o girl from Dubai, Khekhashan Basu, at one of the sessions on education and sustainable world: (See the continuation and more videos on milasunshine channel). Here is a fragment of the opening speech of the chair of the session, called "Children as Agents of Change": I have learned about so many projects and programs that are implemented world-wide. When I was sitting at the session and discussing ideas with the delegates, I was thinking of my social studies methods class and what I can do to engage teacher candidates in some of them, to make them more environmentally conscious.