Jordan Times
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Experts debate means to introduce environmental topics to school curricula
By Mutaz Mango
AMMAN — As part of a national biogas project's sustainability, members of various environmental and educational organisations gathered in Amman Wednesday to study ways to introduce topics related to the project to school curricula.“Today's seminar aimed at introducing an understanding of biogas and ways to benefit from organic waste,” explained the project's coordinator, Heba Irshaid, of the Jordan Environment Society.
The effort falls under the information dissemination and public awareness part of the project. The seminar concluded that a large-scale workshop needs to take place to initiate a change in the curricula.
“The implementation part of the biogas project has ended, now we are working on its sustainability,” said Irshaid.
Biogas is a by-product of natural bacterial action on waste gas, which can be used as a fuel. The national biogas project — funded by United Nations Development Programme and Global Environment Fund, and coordinated by the National Energy Research Centre and the Jordan Environment Society — began with the initiation of the Jordan Biogas Company in 1997. By 2000, a plant was built at the Ruseifa landfill and began producing electric power and feeding the national grid. Power at the plant is generated by combusting biogas from two sources at the landfill: Landfill gas and an anaerobic digester.
Landfill gas is generated from Zarqa's waste that had been building up after being buried beneath the Ruseifa site over the past two decades. The anaerobic digester itself has a capacity to treat about 60 tonnes of organic waste per day, or about three per cent of the daily waste generating potential of the portion of the nation's organic waste, according to a UNDP study.
“The plant has been a success and the project will grow,” said Sufian Tall, environmental consultant and chairperson of one of the discussions.
Comparing the country's curricula with the rest of the world, Madi Jaghbeer, head of family and social medicine at the University of Jordan, shows that a lot needs to be done.
In his presentation on environmental education, Jaghbeer said that one of the main problems is that the people who teach environment-related topics lack the needed experience.
The university lecturer noted that a World Health Organisation directive aims to introduce environment topics in all schools and curricula.
Currently, the University of Jordan and the Jordan University of Science and Technology are the only two universities that provide degrees in environment as a subject.