ms. Marta Vahtar, Domzale SI
Architecture in school: education for sustainable development - theory and practice
A well defined regional identity, expressed through the distinctive image of settlements and landscapes, is the quality that represents an important asset of high cultural and economic value. To assure its continuity, the systematic program of education has to start as early as at the first years of primary school. The aim of built environment education is that children acquire the visual and verbal language of their local environment, that they get familiar with the problems of the built-environment, that they develop a critical relationship to the changes in their environment, and that they recognize the social mechanisms of impacting those changes. The final goal of such education is to develop a critical public, sensitive to changes in their environment; the public that will be well prepared for active and constructive participation in the decision making processes that concern their living environments including city or their homes. Only such a public, can in a long run assure the protection of aesthetic qualities of the built environment.