The Environmental Education Act came into effect in 2012, and the Chiayi City Government Environmental Protection Bureau, in order to support the government's implementation of the Environmental Education Act, has been organizing the Environmental Education Promotion of Chiayi City and integration program since 2014 to encourage citizens to participate in outdoor environmental education and promotion activities, and to cultivate citizens' sensitivity to the environment and to improve their quality of life through the promotion and integration program.
The "2023 Chiayi City Environmental Education and Publicity Integration Program" is in line with the main theme of environmental protection in recent years, such as "Green Life for All" and "Net Zero", and combines Chiayi's local characteristics through a variety of activities, courses, and conferences. In addition to encouraging people to go outdoors, it also fosters the skills of solving environmental problems, so as to enhance environmental literacy, awareness, and sensitivity, and then influences the attitudes and actions towards sustainable development. The following is a summary of the main implementation of each program. The following is a summary of the major achievements of each project:
(a) Continuously promote environmental education-related activities to deepen citizens' knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values in environmental education and to enhance environmental literacy.
In conjunction with the environmental season, we organized environmental education activities, such as the Earth Day series, "Chiayi City 2023 Earth Day - Low Carbon x Rain Monster x Children's Comic Fun," "Green Life Farming Fun," "Shimmering Light Classroom," and "International Day of Biodiversity - Ecology Guide," encouraging the public to participate in these activities. Inventory of environmental education-related activities held over the years is oriented toward environmental protection or environmental issues.
In order to popularize and promote environmental education, different activities, such as the organization of environmental education picture books, environmental education summer camps, the selection of recipes and lesson plans for "Food for Thought", and the preliminary national competition of the Environmental Knowledge Contest, were held to allow children and the public to participate and experience environmental education in a variety of ways. This year's Environmental Education Picture Book Competition received nine submissions, and a picture book review meeting was held on August 29th. The winning picture books were exhibited at the Environmental Education Picture Book Carnival on October 14th and 15th. The environmental education summer camp was held in two sessions, and the number of participants was expanded to include elementary school, junior high school, and high school, with a total of 56 participants, and the students who participated in the summer camp activities gave highly positive feedback. The selection of recipes and lesson plans for food conservation was held for the first time this year, with a total of 30 groups in the recipe category and 1 group in the lesson plan category, in the hope that through the concept of food conservation combined with the recipes and lesson plans, the public would be able to understand the importance of food conservation through cooking. The Chiayi City preliminary contest of the Environmental Knowledge Contest was held on September 16, 2023, with a total of 342 participants, and the top five contestants will be represented in the national contest on November 18, 2023
In addition, the promotion of environmental education should be extended from individuals to the community, and in order to encourage private enterprises, schools, organizations, groups, communities and individuals to implement and practice environmental education in various fields, this year we held the 9th National Environmental Education Award Chiayi City Preliminary Audit, and after the members of the field visit, we selected four units, the school group of the best - Chiayi Xingjia Elementary School, the community group of the best - the community development association of Hezhuang in the western district of Chiayi City, the community group of the best - Chiayi City, west of the Daxi Community Development Association, and individual group of the best - Mr. Shao, and the units that have been awarded with the best will participate in the Central Audit on behalf of the city of Chiayi City.
In order to deepen community environmental education, this year we assisted and counseled Wenya Community, Xingren Community, Xing'an Community, and Renyi Community to submit quarterly reports and results of the "Community Environmental Survey and Training Program"; in addition, we also began to counsel five communities to apply for the 2024 "Community environmental survey and training program", including Wen Ya Community, Xingren Community, Daxi Community, Xinduanzhu Community, Laoteng Community, and Anye Community, as well as the tutoring Xindian community to become an "Eco-Elementary classroom".
In addition to expand the impact of environmental education at the Chiayi City Refuse Incineration Plant, from January to October, a total of 12 sessions were held for a total of 488 people, and this year we applied for an extension of the environmental education facilities.
(b) Enhance the professional knowledge of environmental education volunteers in order to build up their centripetal force and strengthen their sense of belonging.
The core of environmental education promotion includes curriculum, facilities, operation and management, and personnel training. Chiayi City's environmental education volunteers include environmental volunteers, power saving volunteers, green picture book volunteers and environmental education volunteers. Currently, there are 58 environmental education volunteers. This year, in addition to recruiting young environmental education volunteers, we also conducted environmental education related training for new and old environmental education volunteers in order to improve their knowledge of environmental education, so we organized one basic training, one special training, and four enrichment courses, and at the same time, we also made a video of the process of the four enrichment courses for the future promotion of environmental education volunteers.
In addition, we also organize a large-scale group meeting for environmental volunteers, so that environmental volunteers throughout Chiayi City can communicate with each other through the group meeting, and so that each volunteer team can cultivate team centripetal force, solidarity, and create a sense of belonging. The event is not only a meeting for volunteers to exchange ideas, but also an important medium for volunteers to improve their self-knowledge and explore their self-worth. It is hoped that the environmental volunteers, power-saving volunteers, green picture book volunteers, and environmental education volunteers will represent the Chiayi Municipal Government's Environmental Protection Bureau to promote the concept of environmental education and realize the goal of net-zero.
(c) To implement the environmental education law and to strengthen a sound environmental education mechanism.
In order to implement Article 19 of the Environmental Education Act, which stipulates that agencies, public institutions, schools below the senior secondary level, and consortiums with more than 50% of their funds donated by the government should annually set up environmental education programs to promote environmental education, and that all employees, teachers, and students should participate in more than four hours of environmental education, the program held an environmental education regulation checkup and declaration briefing session on April 21st, 2023, with a total of 58 participants, and completed the on-site checkups and counseling on May 31st for 14 units in Chiayi City.
In addition to enhancing the public's knowledge and values of the environment, we organized environmental lectures under this program, targeting the units under adjudication and arranging courses. On October 3, 2023, we organized one 8-hour physical course. As of October 31, a total of 7 environmental lectures have been held, with a completion rate of 99.2% for old cases and 90.6% for new cases.
In addition to targeting the public, courses, activities and meetings related to environmental education organized in Chiayi City are also reviewed and corrected through the annual "Environmental Education Review Meeting" and "Environmental Education Fund Management Meeting", so that Chiayi City can continue to make an impact on the promotion of environmental education.
