The Enviroschools Theme Areas have been developed as part of the suite of Enviroschools resources that support young people, their whānau and communities to move towards a healthy, peaceful and sustainable world.
After developing a vision for their school or centre, Enviroschools will want to take action in specific areas. The Theme Areas will help with investigating some themes in more depth – this involves learning about the Theme Area through a range of activities such as sensory experiences, scientific investigations, exploring cultural knowledge and quantitative audits.
Being immersed in the issue from these different perspectives assists Enviroschools students to make decisions about desirable change, and how they might plan, design and implement those changes.
There are five Theme Areas:
Zero Waste
Living Landscapes
Energy!
Ecological Building
A poster showing the key concepts and the relationships between all the Theme Areas is available here. ES_A3_Pullout_theme_area_key_concepts_web
Individual posters for each of the Theme Areas for you to add to your facilitation kete are available to download here.
Each Theme Area is an enquiry-based learning resource for schools and centres on their Enviroschools journey. They are based on the Enviroschools Action Learning Cycle and focus on the first part of the cycle: Identify the Current Situation.
Each resource contains focus questions, activities and background text as well as supporting case studies, to guide exploration and assessment of the environment. Working through the resource for any theme area will stimulate awareness and ideas, leading to actions that can be carried out using the material presented in ‘Section 3 – Take Action’ of the Enviroschools Kit.
Schools/centres are also encouraged to develop their own theme areas and to consider the strong connections between all five Enviroschools Theme Areas.
Hard copies of the Theme Area resources are available through your Enviroschools facilitator. A low resolution version can be downloaded below.