Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires innovations in education to build key competencies in all learners. Learning objectives for SDGs identified by UNESCO like the “Integrated problem-solving competency,” if integrated properly with high school curriculum, can contribute sustainable development solutions for Belize. Additionally, the 3rd international conference of SIDS http://www.sids2014.org) under the theme, “The sustainable development of small island developing states through genuine and durable partnerships,” stressed investment in education and training, including through partnerships with migrants and diaspora communities, with “concrete, focused, forward-looking and action
oriented programmes.” The Sagicor Visionaries Challenge, a sustainability challenge launched by the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the Caribbean Science Foundation, and the Ministries of Education across 12 Caribbean countries in 2012, represented an example of such a partnership that fostered many key competencies now needed for meeting the SDGs. It asked secondary school students in the Caribbean to
identify a challenge facing their school and or community, propose a sustainable and innovative solution, and show how that solution uses Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) as well as got the support of the school community. For its inaugural year, teacher and student sensitization workshops were organized in each country. Teachers supervised the student projects with support from mentors who were either local or virtual, including many members of the Caribbean diaspora. 175 projects entered the
competition, representing 900 students ranging in age from 11 to 19.
Experience from the inaugural year, which saw Belize’s Bishop Martin Secondary emerge the regional challenge winner, demonstrated interest by young people of the Caribbean in many of the themes listed in the SIDS outcomes like climate change, sustainable energy, disaster risk reduction, sustainable oceans and seas, food security and nutrition, water and sanitation, sustainable transportation, sustainable consumption and production, and health and non-communicable diseases. Reflection on student projects from Belize from
the 2013 challenge, as well as current examples of teacher led inquiry-based projects for CXC’s School Based Assessments (SBAs), offer multiple opportunities for ensuring reef to ridge sustainable development in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean.
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Systems Thinking to Protect Coral Reefs: A Case Study Rooted in Community Partnerships
Environmental impacts associated with inefficient and ineffective land-based wastewater treatment have direct implications for regional governments and local communities in the Caribbean due to the links between environmental quality of coastal areas (e.g. coral reefs) and socioeconomic activities (e.g. tourism, commercial fishing, cultural heritage, recreation). In Placencia, Belize an interdisciplinary team of students and community members investigate the tradeoffs that exists amid a food-energy-water systems (FEWS) case study, in order to co-create sustainable solutions. This work partners with Fragments of Hope and
EcoFriendly Solutions to take a systems approach to consider the dynamic and interrelated factors and leverage points (e.g. technological, regulatory, organizational, social, economic) related to the adoption and sustainability of wastewater innovations at cayes where coral restoration work is occurring. This technology can improve water quality issues in sensitive marine ecosystems and productively reuse water and nutrients
to grow food. Results show that marketing and technical strategies contributed to incremental improvements in the system's sustainability, while changing community behaviors (i.e. reporting the correct number of users and reclaiming resources – water and nutrients – for food production), was the more significant way to influence the sustainable management of the wastewater resources and to protect the coastal environment.
The work is situated within the deeper context of graduate student research and training where the University of South Florida is partnering with the Caribbean Community Climate Change Center to raise up a new generation of globally competent science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students. These students develop interdisciplinary and 21st century skills, as well as technical and methodological flexibility to address the complexity inherent in “wicked problems”. To accomplish this, the partners provide resources
and training for interdisciplinary and systems-based teaching and research that results in original and impactful solutions developed alongside community members to locally and globally focused challenges.
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- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10111354
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 12 th Natural Resource Management & Research Symposium “BELIZE, ‘THROUGH THE BOTTLENECK’”
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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