Projekt ukončen, aktivity sítě pokračují

Projekt Mezioborová síť udržitelného rozvoje byl úspěšně ukončen 30. 4. 2014, aktivity sítě však nadále pokračují.

Tyto původní stránky projektu budou aktualizovány pouze ve výjimečných případech, pro pokračování aktivit je třeba přejít na následující webové stránky:

 

Regionální centrum expertízy Česko - pro další spolupráci subjektů v Česku

COPERNICUS Alliance - pro mezinárodní spolupráci

Mezinárodní projektu UE4SD (běžel v letech 2013-2016)

Webová encyklopedie Enviwiki

Recenzovaný časopis Envigogika

 

Austrian and German good sustainability practice inspires Czech students

IMG 7418A large group of Czech students from a number of non-Prague universities recently returned from a sustainability field trip to the Austrian region of Graz-Styria full of inspiration for how to foster greater understanding and acceptable of the sustainable development concept in the Czech Republic.

A total of 19 students from Masaryk, Palacky, Jan Evangelista Purkyně universities and the Technical University in Liberec led by two staff members from the Charles University Environment Center embarked upon a five-day field trip to the city of Graz and the wider Styrian region on Sunday, 8 September, and returned on Friday, 13 September. This was the third sustainability field trip organised by the Environment Center as part of the MOSUR project, and the second that had been undertaken in Styria with the assistance of the Center’s partners at Karl Franzens University (the previous having taken place in September 2012). Another field trip was made to the Lower Saxon city of Lueneburg in Germany in June 2013 in cooperation with Leuphana University of Lueneburg.

This last trip was the largest to date and provided those students who participated with a range of examples of how the Austrians apply the sustainable development concept in practice, from waste management, to support and promotion of regionally-produced products, to development of renewable energy sources. The main purpose of the trips is not only to introduce or build upon Czech students’ basic knowledge of sustainability, but also to inspire them take home real life examples of how the environmental, economic and social aspects of our lives can be made to work in harmony with each other without restricting future generations’ access to the same benefits we enjoy.

To help track and gauge the impact the field trips make on students, they are asked to undertake a number of assignments before, during and after the excursions take place. This includes pre- and post-excursion surveys to measure their understanding of sustainability, brief explanations of the meaning of sustainability to them on a customised wiki page, and written assignments completed as part of a group exercise critiquing the information received as part of the week’s programme and then applying the examples cited to the Czech context. The findings that will ensue from the questionnaires on students’ knowledge of sustainability prior to the trips and afterwards will form the basis of a peer-reviewed academic research article.

The programme for the most recent visit to Graz certainly provided a rich variety to sustainable development examples to students. Each day was more or less devoted to one particular topic, starting with a class-based introduction to the concept of sustainability in general and then as it applies to Austria at the national level, Styria at the regional level, the city of Graz at the local level, and the University of Graz at the institutional level. The second day took in the strategy of the Vulkanland, a distinct part of Styria, and its goal of supporting local enterprise by focusing on locally produced quality products, including the world-famous organic and fair trade chocolate manufactured at the Zotter factory near Riegersburg, and the efforts of the Kaindorf microregion to fashion itself as a fully sustainable area in its own right. The third day concentrated on waste management systems and local renewable sources of energy with onsite visits to the headquarters of the Saubermach waste management company, and the association of renewable energy producers in Mureck where local stakeholders produce biodiesel and biogas from local grown crops and organic waste. The penultimate day shifted the students’ focus away from the Graz region to the mountains near the town of Eisenerz and how the local inhabitants have been attempting to deal with the legacy of the town’s iron mining industry, which included comparisons with the brown coal mining legacy of north-west Bohemia. On the last day students visited the Gesäuse National Park in the mountainous region of Upper Styria where they learned about how the park’s administration has put in place a specific environmental education programme to teach the wider public not only about what is to be found in the park itself, but also about sustainable living globally.

More information about the sustainability field trips to Graz and Lueneburg can be viewed at the student wikis dedicated to each individual excursion:

Graz-Styria 2012

Lueneburg 2013

Graz-Styria 2013

News

Inaugural meeting of the RCE Czechia

On 27th April 2017, the Regional Center of Expertise Czechia was officially launched. After more than a year of efforts by the Charles University Environmental Center, the network was successfully accredited by the United Nations University (UNU). In the Czech Republic, RCE Czechia is the first association of this type, joining the network of Regional Centers of Expertise across the world which today comprises more than 150 such RCE associations. In Central and Eastern Europe, this model of cooperation has been applied only minimally – so far only 4 RCEs have been established in Albania, Russia and Serbia. Full minutes from the opening meeting can be downloaded here.

RCE Czechia is direct follow-up of the MOSUR Project. You can read more about RCE Czechia on its web pages.

 

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Contact

Contact: Charles University Environment Center, José Martího 407/2, 162 00 Praha 6, tel: +420 220 199 460, e-mail:This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Pages of the project OP VK CZ.1.07/2.4.00/17.0130 - Mezioborová síť udržitelného rozvoje

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