The promotion of sustainable development concerns each and every one of us in his or her daily life. Each of our actions, our habits and our behaviours has an immediate impact on the preservation of our environment and on the sustainable development of our societies and humanity as a whole.
The present publication "Engaging youth in Sustainable Development" is a contribution of the Council of Europe to the United Nations Decade on Education for Sustainable Development. lt is a tool which seeks to help students and teachers integrate Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into their school lives and community activities, through a number of examples and educational concepts. The main target group are pupils in school grades 5-9. These 10-15 year old citizens should be given the possibility to understand that they have a strong role to play inprotecting our planet and the quality of life in our societies, as well as many opportunities to contribute to a sustainable tomorrow.
The examples of good practice set out in this publication are school activities from several countries across Europe and beyond. They illustrate the broad range of recent school projects and activities in Education for Sustainable Development in diverse settings, through multi-thematic approaches. They not only deal with the ecological tenets of sustainable development, but also the cultural, economie, and social ones. This initiative is a joint project of two Directorates of the Council of Europe: the Directorate of Culture and Heritage and the Directorate of School, Out-of-School andHigher Education. The task of selecting the examples and preparing the publication was given to the international network Environment and School lnitiatives {ENSI), which was set up in 1986 by the Centre of Educational Research and lnnovation of the OECD. The result of their work provides interesting material for debate, reflection and critique on sustainable development, which should enable us to use it as a meaningful concept in everyday life.
