H2O University Education Principles
Steps to ensuring consistency to SAWS Education Plan
A. SAWS Core Learning Goals:
The SAWS Core Learning goals provide a broad foundation to support the additional steps in the Project Development Model. What does H2O University hope to eventually instill in its participants?
Awareness- Help students acquire an awareness and sensitivity to the economic, social, political and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas; develop the ability to perceive and discriminate among stimuli; process, refine, and extend these perceptions; and use this new ability in a variety of contexts.
Knowledge- Help students acquire a basic understanding of how the environment functions, how people interact with the environment, and how issues and problems dealing with the environment arise and how they can be resolved.
Attitudes- Help students acquire a set of values and feelings of concern for the environment and the motivation and commitment to participate in environmental maintenance and improvement.
Skills- Help students acquire the skills needed to identify and investigate environmental problems and to contribute to the resolution of these problems.
Behavior- To create new patterns of behavior of individuals, groups and society as a whole towards the environment.
B. The Guiding Principles of H2O University
1. Serve as an accessible resource for educators throughout the San Antonio community.
2. Acknowledge the unique environment in San Antonio; its totality, natural and manmade, technological and social (economic, political, cultural, historical, moral, aesthetic) aspects;
3. Be a continuous lifelong process beginning at the preschool level and continuing through all formal (in school) and non-formal (out of school) stages;
4. Be interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing on age specific content of each discipline area to achieve a holistic and balanced perspective.
5. Examine major water issues from local, national and regional view points to provide students with insights to environmental conditions in other geographical areas;
6. Focus on current and potential water situations, while taking into account the historical perspective;
7. Promote the value and necessity of local, national and international cooperation in the prevention and solution of water problems;
8. Proactively and explicitly consider environmental aspects in plans for development and growth;
9. Enable learners to have a role in planning their learning experiences and provide an opportunity for making decisions and accepting their consequences.
10. Relate environmental sensitivity, knowledge, problem-solving skills, and values clarification to every age, but with special emphasis on environmental sensitivity to the learner's own community in early years;
11. Help learners discover the symptoms, circumstances and real causes of local water problems;
12. Emphasize the complexity of water problems and the need to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills;
13. Utilize diverse learning environments and a broad array of educational approaches to teach/learn about and from the environment, with emphasis on practical activities and first-hand experience.
(Framework developed by UNESCO- 1978)
C. Environmental Ethical Considerations in H2O University Program Development:
In all programs, staff will:
1. Maintain hope and optimism that we can make a positive difference in changing how students relate to and improve the natural world.
2. Deal with the controversial issues and problems with fairness and respect for the various environmental regional views held by others.
3. Create a safe, caring and democratic learning community to enable students to share their beliefs, attitudes, values, principles and feeling openly and honestly.
4. Select appropriate value educational teaching strategies for students functioning at different levels of intellectual, social, and moral development.
5. Use the community and surrounding areas as an expanded classroom in which students directly investigate the natural and cultural environments.
6. Model a personal lifestyle that reflects an environmental ethic and help students examine their own lifestyles and their impacts on the natural world.
7. Consider appropriate curriculum content that minimizes the possibility of creating fear and apathy in students.
8. Recognize that environmental issues and problems are usually complex, meaning that simple decision and solutions are often incomplete.
9. Realize that living in complete harmony with one's environmental ethic is rarely possible, but that does not mean these ideas should be abandoned.
10. Know that humanity may never fully understand its impact on ecosystems and that science alone cannot dictate how humans should behave.
11. Clarify the types of environmental values the community will permit to be inculcated (instilled) and those they want students to choose for themselves (clarified) after careful consideration and critical thought.
Identifying the Message
Identifying the message involves establishing individual program goals, establishing objectives and developing the strategy. Within the "University" there are four themed courses offered to youth ages 3 years to 18 years (PK-12 grade). All core courses are based on the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) created by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).
