This was the first Curriculum Development Symposium convened by Gaia Education, the purpose being to revise, update and extend the Ecovillage Design Education curriculum which has been taught in 22 countries over the last 5 years. UMAPAZ - Open University for Environment and Culture of Peace- was chosen as the host location because of the relatively vast experience this institution has accumulated with EDEs in general, and EDEs with an urban focus in particular.

E. Chris Mare, Gaia Education Curriculum Development Coordinator, facilitating the process reports: “It is quite possible that during the five days of the Symposium, our meeting hall at UMAPAZ was the most high energy location on the planet. This is so not only because of the exhilarating subject matter – upgrading an innovative international curriculum in the emerging field of sustainable community design and development – but also due to the character of the participants – a lively and talented group of experienced Brazilian educators. I’ve never witnessed such intense, concentrated, and prolonged dialogue by a group of symposium participants.”

 Brazilian Educators engaged in the process of review and upgrade of the EDE

 

The Symposium was organized in such a way so as to facilitate open-ended creativity. The participants self-organized into their Dimension of choice – meaning the Dimension to which they are given responsibility for teaching. This provided coherent, consistent dialogue within each of the Dimensions.

Some of the world-wide founding members of Gaia Education made guest appearances via Skype to engage with real-time conversations with the Brazilian educators at UMAPAZ. In these conversations, Dimension teams would describe their reasoning behind proposing new Module titles, along with their associated goals, to the authors of earlier versions of the curriculum.

The participatory process of compiling, synthesizing and editing the final text will take place over the next few months, with a view of the new curriculum being launched over the Summer 2010.