Educators participate in sustainable energy workshop

Educators who attended the Sustainable Energy session
in St. Kitts and Nevis.

TWO Grenadian educators were among stakeholders who participated in a Regional Sustainable Energy Workshop for Energy and Educator Stakeholders in the Caribbean.

Curriculum Officer for Science in the Ministry of Education, Mr. Hervis Adrian Francis Viechweg, and qualified teacher, Mr. Richard Pierre, attended the four-day event, which was organised by the Organisation of American States (OAS) through its Department of Sustainable Development and the Energy Department of the Caribbean Community Secretariat, which is collaborating with the Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC) to accelerate the tran-sition toward cleaner and
more sustainable energy in Caribbean countries.

The three organisations working under the umbrella of two EU-funded initiatives, namely the Caribbean Sustainable Energy Programme and the Caribbean Renewable Energy Capacity Support (CRECS), co-hosted three regional workshops on sustainable energy from September 10-14, 2012 at the Marriott St. Kitts Resort in Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis.

The workshops were attended by official delegates from Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The first workshop from September 10-11 focused on building capacity for the design and implementation of sustainable energy and energy conservation awareness programmes. The second workshop on September 12, which was attended by government officials from Ministries responsible for Education, and Energy and Climate Change, as well as science teachers, reviewed the Caribbean Energy Awareness and Education Programme (CEEAP) and its campaign Learn and Save, and explored avenues for its expansion as a follow-up to the CSEP. The intention is that CEEAP would help to reinforce institutional and pedagogic capacities to integrate in the curriculum, the importance of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.

On September 13 and 14, a Teacher’s Sustainable Energy Workshop was held. The session was attended by government officials from the Ministries of Education and science teachers. This session consisted of lectures and hands-on exercises in renewable sources of energy, energy efficiency and energy conservation. In addition, a package of educational materials and toolkits were handed over to the six independent OECS countries and The Bahamas.

The workshops were led by Dr. Alexandra Daval, an expert in Information and Communications and Mr. Jonathan Rand, who has taught thousands of teachers and students about wind energy, and has facilitated teacher workshops on renewable energy science across the United States as well
as Canada, Costa Rica, Chile and Ireland.

“We are pleased to bring to the region the extraordinary skills and experiences for the workshop leaders together with the deeply committed education and energy sector representatives of the Caribbean
to help expand clean energy educational practices,” said Mark Lambrides, Energy and Climate Change Mitigation Section Chief at the OAS.

The changes taking place in every aspect of today’s world have a powerful and immediate influence on the nature and function of professional educators, whose roles include the ability to mediate between
students and the world around them. (LS)