At the Edge of the Internet: Teaching Coding and Sustainability to Himalayan Girls
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21432/cjlt27864Keywords:
instructional technology, environmental education, Himalayan studies, international education, capacity building, sustainability education, community-based technology, coding, tourismAbstract
This report introduces a two-week workshop on web coding and environmental sustainability at a school for girls in northeastern India. Our discussion of this teaching project reviews issues that shaped the project’s development, outlines resources required for implementation, and summarizes the workshop’s curriculum. Highspeed internet will soon arrive in the region of this recently-recognized UNESCO World Heritage Site. We believe that the training of girls in particular could help redistribute power and resources in regions where women are often poorer, less educated, and excluded from decision-making in institutional and public contexts. Relatively few code teaching projects have grappled with the difficulty of working in offline environments at the “edge of the internet,” and yet moving skills and knowledge into these regions before the internet arrives in full force might help mitigate some of the web’s worst impacts on equity and justice.
References
Bahuguna, S. (1998). The Survival of the Himalaya. In V. Singh & M. L. Sharma (Eds.), Mountain Ecosystems: A Scenario of Unsustainability (pp. 19-24). New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company.
Barua, A., Katyaini, S., Mili, B., & Gooch, P. (2014). Climate change and poverty: building resilience of rural mountain communities in South Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya, India. Reg Environ Change, 14, 267-280.
Center for Ecoliteracy. (2014). Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment A New Alignment with Academic Standards: Learning in the Real World.
Choudhury, M. (2001). Community Development and Tourism: the Sikkim Experience in the Eastern Himalaya. Paper presented at the World Mountain Symposium
Datta, D., & Banerji, S. (2015). Local tourism initiative in an eastern Himalayan village: sustainable ecotourism or small-scale nature exploitation? . In D. Szymańska & K. Rogatka (Eds.), Bulletin of Geography, Socio-economic Series (pp. 33-49). Toruń: Nicolaus Copernicus University.
Dearden, P. (1989). Tourism in Developing Countries: Some Observations on Trekking in the Highlands of North Thailand. In L. J. D’Amore & J. Jafari (Eds.), Tourism – A Vital Force for Peace (pp. 207-216). Montreal: International Institute for Peace through Tourism.
Denjongpa, A. B. (2002). Kangchendzonga: Secular and Buddhist perceptions of the mountain deity of Sikkim among the Lhopos. Bulletin of Tibetology, 38(2), 5-37.
Dietary Guidelines for Indians – A Manual (2011). Retrieved from http://ninindia.org/DietaryGuidelinesforNINwebsite.pdf
Draper, D. L., & Kariel, H. G. (1995). Outdoor Recreation and Tourism in Mountain Environments. In Mountains at Risk: Current Issues in Environmental Studies. New Delhi: Manohar.
Drew, G., & Gurung, A. (2014). Guest Editors’ Introduction: Everyday Religion, Sustainable Environments, and New Directions in Himalayan Studies. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture.
Dutta, A., & Singh, V. (1998). Tourism in the Himalaya: Environmental and Socio-Cultural Concerns. In V. Singh & M. L. Sharma (Eds.), Mountain Ecosystems: A Scenario of Unsustainability (pp. 192-203). New Delhi: Indus Publishing Company.
East, P., Inmann, K., & Luger, K. (Eds.). (1998). Sustainability in Mountain Tourism: Perspectives for the Himalayan Countries. New Delhi: Book Faith India.
FoodSpan. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.foodspanlearning.org/
Gorer, G. (1938). Himalayan Villaga: An Account of the Lepchas of Sikkim. Delhi: Gian.
India Development Gateway. (2012). Revised Guidelines for Implementation of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBVs). Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20120419180758/http:/www.indg.in/primary-education/women-and-education/guidelines-for-implementation-of-kasturba-gandhi-balika-vidyalaya
International Fund for Agricultural Development. Recipes for change. Retrieved from https://www.ifad.org/en/web/latest/campaign-detail/asset/40225267
Jain, N. (2002). Community conservation in the Sikkim Himalaya. In South Asian Perspectives on Ecotourism and Conservation. Sikkim.
Joshi, D. (2014). Feminist solidarity? Women’s engagement in politics and the implications for water management in the Darjeeling Himalaya. Mountain Research and Development, 34(3), 243-254.
Karan, P. P. (1989). Environment and Development in Sikkim Himalaya: A Review Human Ecology, 17(2), 257-271.
Leduc, B. (2009). Gender and climate change in the Himalayas, background paper for e-discussion. Paper presented at the Climate Change in the Himalayas: The Gender Perspective, 5–25 October, ICIMOD, Kathmandu.
Liu, J., Mooney, H., Hull, V., Davis, S. J., Gaskell, J., Hertel, T., & Li, S. (2015). Systems integration for global sustainability. Science, 347.
Meadows, D. H., & Rome, C. o. (1972). The limits to growth: A report for the Club of Rome's project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books.
Mitra, S., Roy, S., & De, S. K. Tourism Industry of Namchi, South Sikkim: An Overview. Geographic Review of India, 77(2), 170-181.
National Council of Educational Research and Training. (2015). Towards aGreen School: on Education for Sustainable Development for Elementary Schools. Retrieved from New Delhi:
Nellemann, C., Verma, R., & Hislop, L. (2011). Women at the frontline of climate change: Gender risks and hopes. A rapid response assessment. Retrieved from
Penniman, L. (2015). Global Sustainable Food Project. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/14SbT8kDt0xm_j3KFyhHmGi-4QOZVg6HWKl-uX7HGd7Q/edit
Price, M. (1995). Patterns of the Development of Tourism in Mountain Communities. In N. J. R. Allan (Ed.), Mountains at Risk: Current Issues in Environmental Studies (pp. 199-219). New Delhi: Manohar.
Resurrección, B. P., Goodrich, C. G., Song, Y., Bastola, A., Prakash, A., Joshi, D., . . . Shah, S. A. (2019). In the Shadows of the Himalayan Mountains: Persistent Gender and Social Exclusion in Development. In W. P., M. A., M. A., & S. A. (Eds.), The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment (pp. 491-518).
Robinson, J., & Cole, R. (2015). Theoretical underpinnings of regenerative sustainability. Building Research & Information, 43(2), 133-143.
Sagant, P. (1996). The Dozing Shaman: The Limbus of Eastern Nepal. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Siiger, H. (1967). The Lepchas: Culture and Religion of Himalayan People. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark.
Tambe, S., & Rawat, G. S. (2009). Ecology, Economics, and Equity of the Pastoral Systems in the Khangchendzonga National Park, Sikkim Himalaya, India. Journal of the Human Environment, 38(2), 95-100.
United Nations Children Fund. (2015). Unicef’s Approach to Scaling Up Nutrition. Retrieved from https://www.unicef.org/nutrition/files/Unicef_Nutrition_Strategy.pdf
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. (2019). Nutrition guidelines and standards for school meals. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/CA2773EN/ca2773en.pdf
Wang, Y., Wu, N., Kunze, C., Long, R., & Perlik, M. (2019). Drivers of Change to Mountain Sustainability in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. In P. Wester, A. Mishra, A. Mukherji, & A. B. Shrestha (Eds.), The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment—Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability and People (pp. 17-56). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland AG,.
Wester, P., Mishra, A., Mukherji, A., & Shrestha, A. B. (Eds.). (2019). The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment—Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability and People: Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham.
World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
World Food Programme. (2018). Bridging the Gap - Engaging Adolescents for Nutrition, Health and Sustainable Development. Retrieved from https://www1.wfp.org/publications/2018-bridging-gap-engaging-adolescents-nutrition-health-and-sustainable-development
Yukon First Nations Curriculum Working Group. Interconnectedness. Retrieved from http://lss.yukonschools.ca/uploads/4/5/5/0/45508033/e1_interconnected_integratedunits_proof3.pdf
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Frances Garrett
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Copyright Notice
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under an International Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (CC-BY-NC 4.0) that allows others to share the work for non-commercial purposes, with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
