ESD Implications inherent in the Ramsar CEPA Activities, Based on the Extraction of ESD related words from record of the participants’impression on KODOMO Ramsar

Abstract

National Institute for Educational Policy Research (NIER) implemented the project research “Research of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at School” from April in 2009 to March in 2012. This research was advanced to clarify what requirements make ESD unique, aiming to introduce ESD to schools in an easy-to-understand way and to let teachers develop ESD curricular and practice ESD. The research clarified the framework of ESD as follows; the six concepts of sustainable society-building and of ESD, the seven abilities and attitudes emphasized by the learning instructions for ESD, and three points to note to pursue learning instructions from ESD viewpoints at school. The six concepts, i.e. variety, interdependence, limitation, fairness, cooperation and responsibility, were used for the analysis of record of the participants’ impression on KODOMO Ramsar Activities, and identified four concepts, i.e. variety, interdependence, cooperation and responsibility, were well acquired from the activities, however, two concepts, i.e. limitation and fairness were not well acquired from the activities. Further, each ratio of the concepts of ‘interdependence’, ‘fairness’ and ‘cooperation’ is gradually increased in accordance with the educational stage and frequency of participation of the activities.