Practical study on environmental education based on the concept of education for sustainable development (ESD) in a rural area of Zambia

"Education for sustainable development (ESD)" has been globally promoted with the rise of our concern of socio-ecological risk standing on the outcomes from United Nations Decade of ESD (UNDESD) from 2005 to 2014. The aim of ESD is to raise the good adults or citizens, who have the will, attitude and skills to contribute to build a sustainable society. On the basis of the idea of ESD and collaborating with teachers of three schools in a rural area of Zambia, we conduct our practical study on the development of site-specific environmental education program. It is the three-year research from FY 2013 to FY 2015 of Japan (April 2013-March 2015). Our research purpose is "What EE program would be possible and acceptable to the teachers of schools in a rural area of Zambia?" Then the research questions are "how to link the environmental elements of life in this area with learning activities in the EE program?" and "How does the developed EE program relates to the idea of ESD?" We developed the EE program with lesson plans focusing on water as well as its supplementary materials including environmental quality data (annual change in air temperature and water quality), the booklet entitled as "Story of Mukuyu". In this paper, the structure of our developed environmental education program as well as its relation to the learning in the ESD are primarily described.