OSCE Project Co-ordinator launches website for environmental education in Ukraine

The OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine (PCU) has launched a website which offers secondary school teachers environmental education materials to promote the principles of sustainable development among young people in Ukraine.

The website features an electronic version of the Green Pack, an educational toolkit from the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe. The toolkit consists of a teacher’s manual for 22 lesson plans, a CD with information, exercises and other learning tools, a ‘dilemma’ game, which is intended to stimulate discussion among students, and a collection of documentaries on DVD.

Lessons focus on the impact of human activities such as energy use, transport and industry on the environment, and global challenges such as climate change and ozone depletion. The toolkit also offers a discussion of the importance of environmental values and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.

The OSCE PCU supported the development of a Ukrainian-language version of the Green Pack and the website as part of a project to assist the education ministry in introducing environmental education into the secondary school system in Ukraine.

The website complements the PCU’s efforts in 2010 to train more than 500 teachers to use the Green Pack. Approximately 4,500 hard copies of the toolkit were distributed to secondary schools across the country. The electronic version of the Green Pack materials can be accessed by teachers of those schools that have not received hard copies, as well as by the general public.

The website can be accessed here: http://www.greenpack.in.ua