Home | Content

Sustainable Infrastructure

Saskatchewan is characterized by extreme temperature variations from winter to summer and other extreme climatic conditions. This creates challenges for sustainable and efficient building design, especially one's that conserve energy. At the same time, the Saskatchewan prairies face significant water challenges and infrastructure costs associated with these water issues. Good housing is also central to people's well-being, their sense of belonging within a community, and their ability to sustain a livelihood. With the cold climate, Saskatchewan people must spend a considerable amount of time indoors creating a greater need for healthy homes and buildings.

Feeling at home in the prairie region in ways that economically provide for a high quality of life can help stem rural to urban migration and migration out of the province a historic challenge of the region. Buildings on the prairies have not traditionally been highly customized to local conditions nor make use of local materials. Education about what buildings and building materials are sustainable and how to build sustainably on the prairies creates livelihood opportunities in the region. Rural communities are also facing deteriorating infrastructure, especially water infrastructure, over the next 10 to 15 years that can be addressed by sustainable infrastructure initiatives. It also affords opportunities for cities to create more affordable housing and revitalized neighbourhoods. If communities are to become sustainable, citizens collectively need to be educated about the full life-cycle costs of their public and private infrastructure as opposed to merely upfront costs.

Community Education Workshop, Regina, September 25, 2010

Submitted by RogerPetry on Wed, 2010-09-01 11:10

BEYOND THE BUZZWORDS: PUTTING COMMUNITY SCHOOLS INTO ACTION
Saturday, Sept. 25
9:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
St. Mary’s Anglican Church
3337 15th Ave., Regina

A community-organized workshop and strategy session. Free of charge.
Childcare provided. Continental breakfast and lunch included.

Facilitated by Dr. Rick Hesch, Aboriginal Education and Anti-Racism in
Education Consultant

With presentations by:
- Maureen Johns, Executive Director, First Nations, Métis & Community
Education Branch
- Delphine Melchert, Executive Director, Saskatchewan Community Schools
Association
- Michael Tymchak, Director, The Saskatchewan Instructional Development
and Research Unit at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina
- Kim Weiss, Director, Prairie Sky School

Saskatchewan has a policy that encourages all schools to function as
community schools. But what does this mean?  How can we put community
voices at the forefront of school planning? What is community-based
education? Have community schools lived up to their original intent? If
not, why not? How can we ensure our schools genuinely respond to
community needs and aspirations?

Details and online registration at http://www.realrenewal.org

All welcome. Education faculty and students encouraged to attend.

"5 Years of Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD" Publication Available Online

Submitted by RogerPetry on Fri, 2010-08-20 10:21

Dear RCE Members,

The United Nations University in May of this year released its publication "5 Years of Regional Centres of Expertise on ESD". This publication documents the first 5 years of RCE activity, including activities by continent. A map of the 75 RCEs existing at the time of publication is also included. I am pleased to announce that this publication is now available online at:

http://www.ias.unu.edu/resource_centre/5%20years%20of%20RCEs.pdf

The document has many photos including those from RCE Saskatchewan. Thank you to those who contributed. RCE Saskatchewan is also mentioned at various points. You can also get a good overview of the other RCEs in our network. Feel free to share this link with others in your organization and in our ESD community. The global RCE community has much to celebrate and this book is indicative of that work.--Roger

Photos from 5th International RCE Conference Posted

Submitted by RogerPetry on Fri, 2010-08-13 16:39

Photos from the 5th International RCE Conference in Curitiba, Brazil, from May 18 to 20, 2010, have now been posted in the image galleries. You can go to the "Resources" tab and then "image galleries" or you use the following link:

http://www.saskrce.ca/category/image-galleries/5th-int-rce-conference-cu...

Thank you to Lyle Benko for providing these photos for posting.--Roger

Invitation to contribute to the World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day

Submitted by RogerPetry on Wed, 2010-08-04 15:30

Dear All,

Forwarded please find the e-mail below from Prof. Walter Leal of RCE Hamburg regarding the World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day. If you are interested in contributing to the event, please contact him for further information. 

Warm regards,

Sachiko

The Global RCE Service Centre

**********************forwarded e-mail***********************

Dear RCE Colleagues,

The World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day will be held on the 3rd December 2010, being co-organised by RCE Hamburg. It will be the largest initiative on sustainability education ever organised, and participants from over 50 countries will take advantage of this unique event

I would like to invite interested RCEs to contribute towards the event, by preparing a power point presentation on one of the topics of the conference, which can be seen:  http://world-sustainability-day.net/en.html

Accepted presentations will, subject to a review, be put on-line during the event and will showcase your work to a wide audience. Expressions of interest to contribute to the event, initially outlining the title of the envisaged input and the author(s) of the work to be submitted, should be sent to us at: beids@beids.de. You will then get a feed-back and a template which you can use for your presentation.

Finally, the authors who want to, may submit a paper about the topic, which may be published in the book "World Trends on Education for Sustainable Development" which will be published in 2011 as part of the award-winning book series "Environmental Education, Communication and Sustainability" .

Established in 1996 and with over 30 ground-breaking volumes published to date, this is the world´s longest running book series on the topic. Please indicate if you want to contribute to it, so that we can send you the template for papers.

Rgds,

Walter Leal

P.S. Let other people know about it!

----

Prof. Walter Leal (BSc, PhD, DSc, DPhil, DEd, DL, DLitt) Senior Professor & Head of the Research and Transfer Centre "Applications of Life Sciences"

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences

UNU RCE Bulletin #12 Now Available

Submitted by RogerPetry on Tue, 2010-07-27 15:50

Please see the message below from the UN University along with the most recent version of the RCE Bulletin attached below.

Dear colleagues,

Our sincere apologies for the delay in sending out the RCE bulletin 12 that carries news of activities from January to March 2010. This issue, like previous ones, showcases some opportunities for collaboration. 

- Page 2: RCEs Rhine-Meuse and Graz-Styria invite the RCE community to a database on Learning for SD

- Page 3: Recently launched RCE Crete invites RCE contributions on the topic of sustainable cities, on which a conference is being organised

- Page 15: Opportunity to participate in a World Sustainable Development Teach-In Day

Learning opportunities, such as RCE London's Teacher Education Network (page 7) and the guide to an Eco-leadership programme being developed by RCE Montreal (page 7-8) are also reported in this issue. 

We are currently working on the next issue of the RCE bulletin (April-June 2010) and hope to send it out in the next couple of weeks.

Please send your questions and contributions to Sampreethi Aipanjiguly (aipanjiguly@ias.unu.edu), Communications Coordinator for the ESD Programme, UNU-IAS.

Thank you.