Nature Trust (Malta) has launched “Young Reporters for the Environment” (YRE), an environmental educational programme supported by the HSBC Cares For The Environment Fund and the Rural Affairs and the Environment Ministry, with the launch supported by the Corinthia Hotels. YRE is a programme for secondary students, run by the Foundation for Environmental Education and represented in Malta by Nature Trust.

Currently, 500 schools from 14 countries across Europe, South America, Asia and Africa participate in YRE. The YRE network functions as a press agency that specialises in producing and delivering journalistic articles about the environment. Students may investigate a number of issues, including agriculture, cities, the coastline, energy, waste, water, transportation, desertification, industrial pollution, forests and population.

The programme aims to empower students to act as protagonists for their own education, give them a vision of the professional world, develop skills along with knowledge in school education, use the internet and new technologies as educational tools, understand the issues of sustainable development and citizenship and create a partnership between teachers and students in the pursuit of a common project.

YRE may be integrated into existing educational programmes, involving a team of different teachers. Disciplines such as physical science, history, geography, languages, computer science and earth and life sciences can be approached from the angle of environmental issues. In the meantime, pupils acquire new competencies in communication and the use of new technologies. The main innovative technique put forward in YRE is the development of project teaching as a way of introducing an open, flexible, topic-oriented and inter-disciplinary approach to education.

Schools interested in participating in the YRE programme may contact Annick Cassar at [email protected] or Nature Trust at [email protected] More information about YRE may be viewed at www.youngreporters.org