Improving environmental education through a synergy of knowledge, experience and critical reflection inspired by Scandinavian and Czech ecophilosophy

About this project

<p>Civic engagement in sustainability problematic often stems from a personal experience of being affected or moved by the effects of the ecological crisis, rather than from information alone. However, current education, especially at universities, is considerably biased towards theoretical information is rather weak at promoting knowledge and experience that might forge ecological citizens. Besides deep ecology, the project will draw from the Norwegian friluftsliv philosophy, Czech tradition of outdoor experiential education and philosophy of nature and corporeality, but also from the fields of arts and environmental aesthetics.<br> Involved teachers will share their knowledge and experience during peer-learning workshops, they will study and be trained in innovative approaches, with the focus on direct embodied methods of approaching nature, and will cooperate to utilize them in university education. Main output will be an innovative education programme consisting of relatively independent modules that the partners will combine according to their needs to create a new course at Czech universities, an innovated course at the University of Oslo, and a new experiential tour at Sluňákov. The program will cultivate the students’ and participants’ perceptiveness to nonhuman surroundings, direct knowledge of nature, personal relation to it and deep reflection of it. It will deepen theoretical knowledge and root it in personal experience. In the longterm, this might strongly influence their sense of personal involvement in both the local and global environmental issues and through that lead to their civic engagement anchored in personal motivation and deep understanding.</p>

Bilateral cooperation results

The collaboration with the donor project partners was crucial for us, as we needed to come in contact with the tradition of deep ecology in education and have an opportunity to discuss it theoretically and methodologically with people with experience in using deep-ecological approaches. With regard to the future, we remain in close contact with our Norwegian colleague, and we plan to continue exchanging our experience and further developments. As it was already mentioned, the project induced an interest in consolidating and furthering the practice of deep ecology both in Norway and the Czech Republic.

Project partners

• University of South-Eastern Norway (USN) Donor project partner· Norway
• Sluňákov – Environmental Activity Centre of the City of Olomouc Project partner· Czechia
• Palacký University Olomouc Project partner· Czechia