Promoting an Enhanced Learning About Environment Through a Whole-school Approach and Non-formal Education Tools: A Case Study of GREEN Olympiad

Abstract

Holistic education empowers learners with a transformative impact and improves their living conditions by enhancing their core competencies. A project-based learning approach helps to further facilitate environmental improvement initiatives at individual and institutional levels through a whole-school approach, ensuring sustainability and contributing to measurable results. GREEN Olympiad is a step in this direction and an example of a programme transcending towards education for sustainable development goals. This programme focuses on inspiring the school fraternity to incorporate various aspects of ‘environment and sustainable development’ into their curriculum through an instructional mode. GREEN Olympiad is a leading environmental education initiative of TERI that has completed 25 years since its inception. The importance of organizing Olympiads is also articulated in the National Education Policy introduced in India in the year 2020. Olympiads are seen as a medium to minimize rote learning and encourage holistic development and enhance twenty-first-century skills. This is the premier Olympiad on the environment in India and draws its linkages with the Sustainable Development Goal 4, Target 7 (SDG 4.7), which states, ‘ensure all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development’ by 2030.