About Gaia Education

Gaia Education - officially founded in July 2005 - is an international consortium of experienced ecovillage educators developing curricula and courses on ecovillage design and sustainable community development.

Gaia Education as an organization was created by a group of educators called "GEESE" (Global Ecovillage Educators for a Sustainable Earth) who met over a series of workshops in order to formulate their transdisciplinary approach to education for sustainability and to design the Ecovillage Design Education (EDE) curriculum. These meetings took place at:

* Fjordvang, Denmark in 1998
* Findhorn Foundation in 2004
* Galgafarm, Hungary in 2005
* Wongsanit Ashram, Thailand in 2007

Ecovillages around the world offer valuable experiences and lessons about the design and creation of sustainable communities in rural and urban settings. Gaia Education is united in the effort to make the knowledge and skills developed in ecovillages accessible to a wide audience.

The first milestone in the development of Gaia Education was the launch of an innovative curriculum for Ecovillage Design Education, during the 10th anniversary conference of the Global Ecovillage Network at the Findhorn Ecovillage in October 2005.

The Ecovillage Design Education curriculum has the endorsement of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).

In 2006 and 2007, Gaia Education successfully supported the delivery of a number of pilot programmes on five continents. Internationally, the number of four-week long intensives and other course formats are increasing steadily along with a sharp increase in the number of applicants and participants of these courses. These vocational courses are open to a diverse group of people with a wide range of professional and academic backgrounds who are interested in taking an active role in the sustainability transition. The ecovillage Crystal Waters in Australia is currently pioneering a 4 month-long ecovillage apprenticeship scheme based on the EDE curriculum.

With regard to higher education and academically accredited courses Gaia Education so far endorsed a series of semester-long undergraduate programmes offered by Living Routes and the University of Massachusetts which are taught at various ecovillages worldwide. The first steps towards creating a masters programme in sustainable community/ecovillage design based on the EDE curriculum have been made by the Findhorn Foundation College in partnership with Gaia Education and Scottish universities.

The Ecovillage Design Curriculum is an official contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development- UNDESD 2005-2014. Highlights on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The March 2008 DESD Quarterly Highlights on the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development is available.