"Madwarna" : an environmental education multimedia package

Abstract

Environmental Education is a lifelong process aimed at encouraging a formal commitment towards a sustainable lifestyle. It educates through, about and for the environment so as to cultivate attitudes, values and actions that are compatible with sustainable development. Through the use of various integrated media, multimedia can facilitate the kind of learning experiences required in Environmental Education. MADW ARNA takes up a holistic approach to Environmental Education and tries to familiarise users with the local environment. It has been developed in Maltese to address the shortage of software packages available on the market in this language. MADW ARNA can be used as a teaching resource, either as it is, or by being customised according to individual learning needs through an exclusively designed section. MADW ARNA has been tested with a number of six to eight year old children as well with a number of primary school teachers who had the opportunity to make full use of its features. This package includes a manual to guide young users through MADW ARNA, as well as a Teacher's Manual, which apart from giving a detailed description of the software itself, provides the required information for making it a useful teaching resource through customisation. KEYWORDS