sustainability conference 2007

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Sustainability Conference 2007

Friday 12 October 2007 at Dorothy Stringer High School, Brighton

The 2007 Sustainability Conference was on the theme of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) - a key ingredient in effectively creating sustainable schools and communities. 

The Conference was chaired by Cathy Moore, Head Teacher of St Andrews CE Primary School in Hove, and was opened by Councillor Steve Harmer-Strange.   

Speakers included Professor Bill Scott from the University of Bath's Centre for Research in Education and Environment, on the role of learning within sustainable development [pdf 85.9 kb].  Jordan Stephens, South East Climate Change Champion (2006-07), talked about his experience of communicating a global environmental issue to the community and his peers. Jake Reynolds from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) spoke about their Sustainable Schools agenda [pdf 845 kb].

Case Studies were presented by Uckfield Technical College, Ringmer Community College, Brighton Peace & Environment Centre and Pestalozzi International Village.

Many thanks to those who made the day such a success, including representatives from schools, colleges, community groups and local authorities from across the South East.  In all, we had 150 delegates, many of whom stayed for the EcoSchools Twilight Session (see below). 

The report of the conference will be available here soon.

Meanwhile, here are some examples of the positive feedback we received from delegates:

• "The conference was very useful to inspire, inform and hopefully take into action".
• "Well done for presentations by students! Refreshing to hear them able to be heard on a par with us".
• "Balanced and instructive – very hard to find fault with it".
• "Quality of speakers and case studies very high, nice mix of delegates".
• "An excellent day with a great balance of topics and ideas alongside real life stories and examples.  Venue ideally suited the day too".
• "I found it inspiring and encouraging to know that all this is going on!"
• "Jordan Stephens – what a brilliant example to his peers!"
• "As a community group representative I appreciated the opportunity to gather information from the stands and hear excellent speakers presenting their topics.  Jordan was especially a credit to his generation and I hope to see more of him in the future."

Full details of the day's discussions can be found in the Conference Report [pdf 8MB]. (Please note that the report is very large so may take a while to download).

EcoSchools Twilight Session 2007

Over 60 teachers, bursars and other environmental educators attended the EcoSchools Twilight session that ran between 4-6pm after the Sustainability Conference. The theme for this year was "Water, Watts and Waste". Speakers included Howard Johns from Southern Solar, Piers Benjamin from Southern Water, and Nigel McCutcheon, Brighton & Hove City Council's Architecture and Design Manager. The delegates were given practical advice on how to implement energy and water saving measures within their schools. The speakers were followed by a series of 'hands-on' workshops covering a range of sustainability issues. This year's Twilight session has received positive feedback, empowering teachers to return to their schools with many new ideas for improving their sustainability performance.

For more information on Education for Sustainability, visit our Sustainable Schools page.