Throughout the winter and spring at Archipelagos Institute, we continue both face-to-face and online environmental education and awareness-raising activities with primary, secondary and high schools from all over Greece.
Our goal is, by transferring our experience from field research and the study of Aegean species for 25 years, to contribute to filling the large gap in environmental education in the school curriculum and to inspire children to learn about and love the nature that surrounds them.
It is important that young children, and all of us, realise that wildlife survival and human survival are inextricably linked.
The question that should concern us all, however, is how this truly enormous knowledge gap can finally be filled, when there is not a single lesson or book in the school curriculum even today, nor are there any trained teachers and lecturers who can teach the subjects related to the natural environment and its protection.
As a result, there remains a huge ignorance about biodiversity – that is, about the thousands of species with which we coexist and interact on a daily basis – especially outside the cities. So we remain vulnerable to all these species around us, but they are also under threat from humans, as we do not understand how we can co-exist. Similarly, we ignore how we will survive in the new conditions that are emerging due to climate change. A reality that we are not aware of, but which is often used as an excuse to cover up everything that has not been done over time to protect the environment.
The panic and insecurity expressed by citizens and magnified by the media, regarding “dangerous” or “man-eating” snakes, spiders, sharks, jellyfish or even sea anemones etc. is a result of this huge gap in knowledge and perception.The panic and insecurity expressed by citizens and magnified by the media, regarding “dangerous” or “man-eating” snakes, spiders, sharks, jellyfish or even sea anemones etc. is a result of this huge gap in knowledge and perception.
Over time and across party lines, while the Ministry of Education is changing leaderships, environmental issues are conspicuously ignored, which are not considered a priority even by the majority of teachers who do not include them in their demands, while the rest of us citizens continue to choose the role of passive spectators of all the above.
The question that should concern us all, however, is how this truly enormous knowledge gap can be filled, when even today there is not a single lesson or book in the school curriculum, nor are there any trained teachers and lecturers who can teach the issues relating to the natural environment and its protection.