Converging Youth Energies, Being Courageous to Challenge the Future— The Ministry of Education and the United States Environmental Protection Agency Cooperated to Jointly Cultivate International Youth Leadership of Environmental Education
In 2019, the Ministry of Education cooperated once more with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to promote the 2019 International Student Conservation Leadership Summit. The bilateral youth student exchange program was implemented by National Kaohsiung Normal University, the Chinese Society for Environmental Education, and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). It was hoped to cultivate youth leadership of environmental education through international interchanges. 14 senior high school students in Taiwan (including one indigenous student) were selected to participate in this program. In the beginning of August 2019, they went to University of California San Diego to learn, share, and live together with American senior high school students, among which included seven Native American students.
The Deputy Director, Liu Wen-Hui, of the Department of Information and Technology Education of MOE said that this program not only enhanced students’ environmental sustainability knowledge and relevant affective education, global perspectives, and multi-cultural viewpoints, but also simultaneously cultivated their communicative competencies in foreign languages, environmental fulfillment, as well as carrying out diverse core literacies of the 12-Year Basic Education Curriculum Guidelines. The Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator, Jane Nishida, of the Office of International and Tribal Affairs (OITA) of the US EPA, said that this program is equipped with broad international vision, which has been a great contribution to the cultivation of international youth leadership of environmental education.