The International Wadden Sea School
The International Wadden Sea School (IWSS) is an educational programme for children and school classes from the Wadden Sea countries: Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.
It was established by the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation and nature conservation organisations on the Cooperation’s 25th anniversary in October 2003.
The aim and tasks of the IWSS are to raise awareness among children and young people of the Wadden Sea as a shared natural and cultural heritage and to create an understanding of the need to jointly protect the Wadden Sea as a whole. To achieve this, the IWSS:
- supports nature and wilderness experiences through educational excursions and activities,
- facilitates international ‘Wadden experiences’ by providing an information and service-platform for international school trips,
- supports the internationalisation of high-quality environmental education with networking activities and joint projects of the participating education centres.
Find out more about the IWSS at www.iwss.org
Education for Sustainable Development
Since the start of 2005, and the UN’s Decade for Sustainable Development, education in and outside school cannot be imagined without Education for Sustainable Development. More and more, the nature centres in the Wadden Sea adjust their concepts and activities to the new educational standards.
Education for sustainable development enables people to deal with questions of ecology and development and to take part in decisions that affect us all, now and in the future. Its goal is to raise awareness for, and identification with, the environment. It’s not just about the transfer of knowledge but also about action-oriented and political learning.
Organisation and partners
The network of the Wadden Sea information centres constitute the basis of the IWSS. Centres from all Wadden Sea regions have joined the network and support the idea of trilateral Wadden education. The centres offer educational activities and programmes with a special focus on the international Wadden Sea (Trilateral Core Activities). The partners regularly meet at international workshops, exchange ideas and jointly develop new IWSS-activities and projects.
On behalf of the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation, the WWF coordinates the educational programme over all three countries. This also covers networking, the joint development of trilateral educational activities and materials, press and public work, fundraising and much more.
National programmes and projects
In each Wadden Sea region there are national and regional projects such as the Waddenzeeschool a project in the Netherlands, educational offers from the three German Wadden Sea National Parks, and “My Wadden Sea’ in Denmark.
The IWSS cooperates with many of these projects. It adds a trilateral aspect to them and supports international networking and exchange.
Sponsors
Sponsors and project funding help the IWSS to achieve its aims through material or financial assistance. They also facilitate the development and production of innovative, international teaching resources such as ‘Conny’s Wadden Adventures’ or special events like the ‘National Park Summer Camp’.
