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Last update: March 2013

General Information Educational Service

Educational Service: What is it about?

How to communicate environmental know-how to young people in a high quality, scientifically up-to-date and at the same time attractive manner? The educational service of the Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) makes this possible with a host of multi-facetted educational material, up-to-date information, activities and user- and service-oriented ideas for schools and educational institutions. The educational service was recognized by UNESCO as an official measure under the UN "decade of education for sustainable development".

Educational materials

Workbooks and interactive learning modules

The BMU educational materials are free of charge and deal with environmental issues such as renewable energies, climate protection or biological diversity. They are aimed at primary and secondary I and II level pupils. As well as presenting explicit examples directed towards different age levels, they offer impetus and ideas on how to use the topics of sustainable development, environmental protection and nature conservation in an educational context. Moreover, these materials are excellent starting points for the promotion of technical and scientific literacy. With its interactive modules on issues such as water, biological diversity or energy the educational service website also offers innovative forms of learning. Online quiz pages and games are a playful way of conveying environmental know-how. In June 2010 the educational material was awarded the most important European award for didactics on the web, the Comenius EduMedia Award, for its didactic und media quality.

Multimedia access

To ensure that pupils have multi-media access to environmental topics, the educational service has already made available several cinema films to schools, including the license to show them: "Earth", "Arctic Tale", "Planet Earth" and the shark film "Hannes Jaenicke im Einsatz für Haie".

Action Programme "climate protection in schools and educational institutes"

This programme, to date the most comprehensive educational programme to promote climate protection, was launched by the BMU at the end of 2008. Under the heading "climate protection school" (Klimaschutzschule) the Federal Environment Ministry has earmarked over 3.4 million euros to support ideas and projects in schools which contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions. The action programme supports project days with material such as a "climate box" or supports funding initiatives such as the "Aktion Klima!" initiative run by BildungsCent e.V. The programme also provides visual data on solar power systems that can be incorporated into lessons. The contact for this is the Independent Institute for Environmental Concerns (Unabhängiges Institut für Umweltfragen e.V. (UfU)). Another cooperation partner is "co2online" which gives schools a specially developed energy saving account to support their energy saving schemes. There is also a climate protection atlas on the web providing an overview of climate protection schools in Germany and networking opportunities.

Objectives

The objective of the educational service is twofold: to create environmental awareness among children and young people to make them recognize the value and effect of a healthy natural environment on the quality of their life, and to communicate know-how on environmental problems and possible solutions. The multi-facetted topic "environment" offers a host of opportunities geared towards communicating science and technical competences to children and young people for the future.

Consumer information

Keeping informed

Parents, teachers and others working, researching or playing with children and young people in the area of environmental education can download or order free of charge a host of material from the BMU educational service website. For the latest information on the offers available and the issue in general see the monthly newsletter on environmental education (in German only).

Kids: Hungry for knowledge - bmu-kids.de

Where do roots grow to? How can I turn wind energy into movement? On the BMU's website for kids (in German only) children learn more about topical environmental issues and the Ministry's work with the help of games, creative workshops or short texts especially designed for kids. And they learn how they can personally contribute to environmental protection.