This website is designed to help people share news, activities, resources and ideas about Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Do get in touch with us. As Europe expands, and the world seems ever more an interconnected place the possibilities for improving education grow rapidly. This site emphasises some of the latest ESD thinking in Yorkshire & Humberside-and beyond. This online ESD forum is a gateway to a wealth of other websites which provide visions of a sustainable world orientated around the real issues facing the economies and peoples of the world – collective choices about energy, food and farming, poverty, water, biodiversity, new technologies and business models. This site forms part of a family of ESD websites across Europe, supported by the European Commission (see flags, top right).

This is a website featuring ESD and sustainable development work from practitioners across the Yorkshire and Humber region. It is for educators and other key individuals interested in the design, development and dissemination of innovative ESD partnership initiatives across Yorkshire and Humber. The website features:

• exemplar ESD activities for use with learners in a variety of educational settings
• online 'resource folders' containing in-depth textual and graphical resource material
• news and feature articles
• calendar of events
• Links to top regional, national and international websites
• good practice case studies on ESD
• photo galleries-compelling images of "sustainability in action" across the Yorkshire and Humber region

• to share ideas and experiences in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
• to communicate and promote ESD good practice
• to feature compelling images of sustainable development and ESD in Yorkshire and Humber
• to connect Education with the local and regional sustainable development agenda in Yorkshire and Humber
• through the development of online ESD learning communities, help to build capacity to deliver innovative ESD across Yorkshire and Humber

We hope this website will be of particular interest to teachers, teacher trainers, lecturers in Further and Higher Education, community educators/enablers, as well as decision-makers working in government and professional institutions.


What is ESD? Our starting point.....

Our starting point for ESD is the UK Government's ESD Panel report published in 1998. It defines ESD as:

"Education for Sustainable Development is about the learning needed to maintain and improve our quality of life and the quality of life of generations to come. It is about equipping individuals, communities, groups, businesses and government to live and act sustainably; as well as giving them an understanding of the environmental, social and economic issues involved. It is about preparing for the world in which we will live in the next century, and making sure that we are not found wanting" .

Source: UK Government's ESD Panel report to the Department for Education and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, 1998

But this is just a starting point - we need to evolve our understanding of ESD through engagement with ongoing developments in ESD policy and practice. This website hopes to help by including reference and links to a selection of key papers from academics and practitioners working in the ESD field. Go to the Resources area of the site to view key national/international documents about ESD