Sustainability Compass - Inspire Citizens

 Source: https://inspirecitizens.org/

Audit institutions, community spaces, projects,
and personal habits for sustainability

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Compass Education

Purpose:
Having a sustainability framework, such as the Sustainability Compass, allows individuals or teams to audit successes and challenges in an organization, personal or collective actions, or a project in relation to nature, economy, society, and wellbeing.

Student Impact Profile:
Critically examine community needs to design ethical solutions

Enduring Understanding:
Having a tool that critically assesses the sustainability of an organization, project, or personal action helps in identifying needs and potential impact projects that develop more sustainable attitudes, behaviors, actions, and policies.

Essential Questions:

1. Assess & Explain: How might using a Sustainability Compass support a greater understanding in the need for positive change in personal or community action?

2. Identify & Distinguish: In my sustainability assessment, how did I distinguish between identified community strengths and areas for improvement?

3. Reflect, Predict & Comment: How might a common understanding of sustainability unify a community?

4. (Extension) Transfer & Evaluate: How can I apply my experience with the Sustainability Compass in a school organizational assessment towards evaluating the sustainability a community project or the True Price of personal action?

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Core Activities:

1. Pre-assess student background understanding of sustainability

2. Use the Sustainability Compass to help students enhance their understanding

3. Create a Sustainability Compass chart and audit the school campus and community.

4. Consolidate information for a bank of project ideas.

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Flexible Steps: 

Apply these ideas for context while scaffolding and differentiating for age, language proficiency, readiness, independence, learning needs, content connections, and so on.

Compass Education

1. Pre-assess student background understanding of sustainability then share the Sustainability Compass to help students to describe what they can synthesize. What is our new understanding of sustainability in relation to nature, economy, society, and wellbeing?

2. Create a Sustainability Compass chart. Have students survey the sustainability of the campus by walking around (20-30m), thoughtfully observing what they see in the campus and audit these strengths and areas for improvement.

3. Upon returning to class, have students reflect and share thinking and observations on their audits.

4. Consolidate information from the various teams in a community Sustainability Compass table or wall that highlights the most essential observations on successes and areas for improvement.

5. Keep these essential observations as an idea bank for innovative projects enhancing successes or problem solving for challenges.

Extension Possibilities:

True Price

1. Connect with Compass Education to access the School Sustainability Self-Assessment to help identify indicators for a campus sustainability audit which can spark inquiry or project ideation.

2. Use the Sustainability Compass to analyze the “True Price” of a campus service project (i.e. a bubble tea fundraiser) or in analyzing responsible consumption or production of goods and services (i.e. beef, t-shirts, iPhones, coffee)

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Allow for embedded quality time to reflect on learning, understanding, or the essential questions through speaking, writing, or other creative reflection and formative assessment opportunities.

Reduce Global Ocean Plastic Wastes

 Link: https://www.nap.edu/resource/other/dels/plastics-in-the-ocean/

The United States should substantially reduce solid waste generation (absolute and per person) to reduce plastic in the environment and the environmental, economic, aesthetic, and health costs of managing waste and litter. There is no single solution to reducing the flow of plastic waste to the ocean. However, a suite of actions (or “interventions”) taken across all stages of the path from source to ocean could reduce ocean plastic waste and achieve parallel environmental and social benefits.

Decrease Waste Generation.
Actions at this stage reduce unnecessary use of plastics such as some single use applications.  Types of interventions can include product limits and targets for recycling and reuse.

Improve Waste Management (Prevent or Reduce Disposal/Discharge).
Action within this stage improves solid and other waste infrastructure, collection, treatment and management, including leakage control and accounting.

Capture Waste (to Remove Plastic Waste from the Environment.)
Improving waste capture from the environment before or after it enters the ocean is another intervention strategy.  This can include re-capturing wastes from stormwater or directly from waters where it accumulates, such as during river or beach cleanups or using retention booms.

Minimize Ocean Disposal.
This category reduces inputs of plastic waste into the ocean directly from vessels, point sources, or platforms and includes actions under specific laws and treaties relevant to ocean pollution. 

Other Activities (to Support Above Interventions)

Flow diagram of available plastic waste interventions from plastic production to recapture of plastics in the ocean.

SOURCE: Modified from Jambeck et al. (2018).

Rebooting International Cooperation

 Link: https://globaldimension.org.uk/resources/december-activity-rebooting-international-cooperation/

Alongside our 2021/22 Global Learning Wall Planner - 10 Ways to Reboot the Future - we’re releasing a series of monthly classroom resources. 

Each of our class activity resources explores a different focus for creating a more sustainable and compassionate future, based on the 10 Big Shifts in Jonathon Porritt’s Rise Up to Reboot the Future.

The activities are adaptable for all age ranges and can be used as standalone activities for tutor group sessions or can slot into a lesson.

Rebooting International Cooperation

This month’s class activity explores December's theme of International Cooperation. Learners explore the concept of the Tragedy of the Commons through a game where resources are replenished as they are used up. Participants have to find a way to cooperate so that the resources don't run out.

New this year: monthly challenges

Every month we will be setting a series of challenges – complete one or more of the challenges as a whole class, or choose 2 or 3 pupils to complete one each month over the course of the year.

To win a bundle of books for your class – all linked to this month’s theme - simply post a photo of your class’s completed challenge on social media before the end of September 2021, and tag @globaldimension for the chance to win.

Rise Up to Reboot the Future e-book

Ebook: https://globaldimension.org.uk/resources/campaign-book/

• https://globaldimension-media.s3.amazonaws.com/resource-item/attachment/Rise_Up_to_Reboot_the_Future.pdf
• https://globaldimension-media.s3.amazonaws.com/resource-item/attachment/Book_Club_Companion_Guide_o4GjIhM.pdf

Rise Up to Reboot the Future - an e-book by Jonathon Porritt

Rise Up to Reboot the Future tells the story of the next five years, with a particular focus on the Climate Emergency, and how young people can play a role in transforming the world into a fairer and more sustainable place. 

Jonathon Porritt describes it as: “A just about plausible imagining of how the world finally gets to grips with the Climate Emergency by 2025 – largely thanks to the courage and creativity of young people”.

Companion Guide

The accompanying companion guide is designed to support groups reading Rise Up to Reboot the Future. It can also be a useful companion for solo readers who want to dive deeper into the topics and themes that emerge.

 

Part of the "How Will You Reboot the Future?" Campaign

This e-book and companion guide are designed to help teachers begin to introduce conversations about climate action into the classroom in a way that is positive, empowering, and adaptable to suit the needs of individual teachers and students as they navigate the transition back to school.

They sit alongside a series of 5 short films, each with an accompanying teaching guide. These resources flexibly slot into tutor group sessions or any gaps in the timetable, allowing teachers to spark conversations with their students and find space in the day to stop and consider how our actions now can make a real difference in the future. 

These materials are also suitable outside of classroom contexts, including youthwork, uniformed groups, Duke of Edinburgh, Youth Parliament meetings, Student council/ Pupil council meetings and more.

RESOURCE CONTENTS

• 

  BOOK

  Rise Up to Reboot the Future e-book

  Download

• 

  PDF

  Book Companion Guide

  Download

TOPICS

Arts, Culture and Religion, Child Rights, Compassionate Values, Environment and Sustainability, Equality, Globalisation and Interdependence, Health and Well-being, Industry and Economy, Media, Internet and Technology, Peace, Conflict and Justice, Politics and Government, Production and Consumption, Social Justice

AGE RANGES

KS4: ages 14-16, KS5: ages 16+

SUBJECTS

Citizenship, Philosophy / P4C / Critical thinking, PSHE / PSE / PSED, Climate Campaign, Clubs and extra-curricular, Remote learning, Spiritual, moral, social, cultural (SMSC)

EcoGuide – Recipes to minimise your impact on the environment while saving costs

 

EcoGuide – Recipes to minimise your impact on the environment while saving costs [EN, KM, MY, TH, VI]

55 tips and good practices to reduce Tourism’s impact on the environment

An Eco-Guide for Hospitality Businesses & Schools

“Recipes to minimize your impact on the environment while saving costs.”

55 tips and good practices to reduce Tourism’s impact on the environment

Reusable water bottles in hotel rooms, LEDs instead of incandescent light bulbs, composting restaurant leftovers… These are some examples of the 55 good practices gathered in the Eco-Guide for Hospitality Businesses & Schools. This “recipe book” is published by ASSET-H&C, a network of hospitality schools in Southeast Asia, and is geared towards restaurants, hotels and all tourism stakeholders willing to improve their environmental sustainability.

 

Download

 

In this guide:

4 key focus: energy, water, waste & pollution, mitigation & adaptation to climate change

35 practical recommendations 

20 good practices already implemented by tourism actors

The COVID-19 crisis has been considered by many as a wake-up call for the industry. Time for deep social and environmental change has come, and the downtime in global tourism activities has offered a golden opportunity for such a change to happen. 

COVID-19 has made travelers more aware of their impact on the environment and local communities. 53% of global travelers will be seeking more sustainable tourism products and services in the future, according to the Future of Travel Report by Booking.com*. Such growing demand for environmentally responsible tourism is more than just a trend; it represents a shift in customers’ awareness and a call for action on this global emergency. As a result, tourism providers are surely adapting, and soon services and products that respond to the demand and contribute to making a positive impact will become predominant. 

To accompany them on this more sustainable pathway, ASSET-H&C provides accessible and easy guidance for tourism businesses to start taking action. As the Eco-Guide supports businesses in increasing their sustainability, it also helps them save costs and equips them with a distinctive advantage regarding consumer demand. It is accessible to everyone regardless of their technical background.

 

 Link download: https://assethc.org/publication/

To foster an inclusive approach to sustainability and make this Eco-Guide for Hospitality Businesses and Schools accessible to a wider audience, it has now been translated to Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Vietnamese.