Need or Greed? A Didactic Tool as a Method to Incorporate Education for Sustainable Development into School Curricula

Environmental, social and economic problems continue to grow due to human kind’s inability to make conscious decisions regarding their habits and lifestyles. Human activity is hindering sustainable development; therefore, it is necessary that changes must be made in the way humans behave and consume. As a result of United Nations programmes such as the Rio Earth Summit, the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development, it has been formally established that educating youth is a major contributing factor towards sustainable development. Through education that addresses behaviour and lifestyle changes in terms of sustainable development, it is possible to influence children into making environmentally and ethically sound choices. The creation of a didactic tool to teach children their environmental, social and economic impacts was found to be a method that will assist the education curricula in this area termed ‘Education for Sustainable Development.’

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