We did not inherit the thorns from our ancestors. We borrowed them from our children.
/Lester Brown/
This school year, 1994/95, the Self-Development Laboratory at the Regional Centre for Environmental Education in Jelenia Góra proposed an alternative version of the Environmental Olympiad for school students from our voivodeship.
The novelty consists in moving away from the typical formula of a theoretical knowledge test and moving towards year-round participation in activities for the benefit of Mother Earth. The event would culminate in a GREAT FESTIVAL in June 1995, at which teams from individual schools would present their achievements from throughout the year.
According to the creators of the framework programme, the Olympiad is intended to be the result of many months of work, a process of getting to know one another, learning about and from one another, COOPERATION, PARTNERSHIP, and creating shared plans and resolutions: “How should we live?”
Ecology is, after all, the whole of life, the entirety of all phenomena; it is shared responsibility for our lives and the entire planet. Campaigns such as “Let’s Clean Up Poland” are admirable, but they once again contain an element of short-term action, whereas what we need is continuous activity. This is what the activities launched this school year—Actions for Mother Earth—are intended to serve.
Several dozen teams from schools across the Jelenia Góra voivodeship, including approximately 15 teams from Bolesławiec schools, have entered the Olympiad. We hope that as a result of these activities, our lives and the natural environment will become more beautiful and better. Therefore, we appeal to everyone—the city authorities, institutions and residents of Bolesławiec: help young people when they approach you to resolve problems, provide them with comprehensive information, and suggest what else can be changed around us.
We will report in our newspaper on the interesting activities of the teams taking part in the Olympiad.