Sustainability

True learning happens at the juncture of curiosity and experiences. A child learns lessons in patience, empathy, and respect for life while planting a seed and growing it or even while watching a bird build its nest, which stays in the child's memory far longer than anything they read from school textbooks.

Outdoor learning enables the child to observe, question, and relate to the world. As many studies have established, with increased hours spent outdoors, children show improved concentration, their mood improves, and their creativity is enhanced too. Children learning among trees and soil will not just learn about the environment, but they will be a part of it.

It is not all about Earth Day; it is about what one does each day: separating trash, composting food scraps, or reusing old things instead of throwing them away. The practice of switching off taps, collecting rainwater, carrying refill bottles-all go toward instilling environmental awareness. Even sewing up a torn school bag instead of immediately buying a new one helps to teach a lesson: big changes in life start with little, everyday decisions. More and more young people turn vegan or onto plant-based diets not for some sort of fashionable trend, but as a deliberately conscious choice in the care of the planet. Animal production for food requires huge water, land, and energy supplies. 

Choosing more plant-based meals is one concrete way of reducing pollution and protecting natural resources. Children learn by observing much more than from anything else. A teacher who tends to a school garden or composts at home is teaching values much more powerfully than with words alone. It is when the lessons of science are correlated with renewable energy, or geography teachers do the same with conserving water, that the idea of what sustainability is all about gets redefined-turning it from a subject into a way of life. Real-life linking makes students take responsibility for the environment personally. 

Climate change is not something that would happen; it's a reality concerning rising temperatures, floods, and shrinking forests. Education should prepare the children not with fear but with optimism and problem-solving skills. The children become aware that every contribution, however small, adds up to so much in the general process of calculating their carbon footprint, exploring renewable energy solutions, or thinking through ways to reduce plastic use. Wonder is the beginning of sustainability. Let the children be awed by earth, and it shall surely follow that they care enough to want to protect it. 

Curiosity sparks care, and care leads to action. Maybe the best classroom still lies outside four walls under the open sky, where a child listens to the rustling of leaves, observes the rhythm of life, and realizes he or she is not separate from nature but an inseparable part of it.

According to Minoo Rathnasabapathy of the MIT Media Lab, one of the leading voices in responsible space systems, if space sustainability has to be achieved, available data has to be provided to the emerging nations.

According to Minoo Rathnasabapathy of the MIT Media Lab, a strong advocate for responsible space systems, the sustainability in space science depends critically upon how space data presently available are accessible to emerging nations. Free and open access to satellite and other spaceborne data allows developing countries to engage actively in space activities related to the monitoring of environments, management of disasters, and also the accomplishment of SDGs.

International efforts highlight the fact that Earth observation and other space-based technologies are vital information providers in respect to climate change, disaster management, and economic development all over the world. Programs on open data policy and related training will help developing countries use space data effectively to level the playing field in the global space ecosystem.

This is reiterated by the likes of Rathnasabapathy, who asserts that inclusive data sharing is not only a technical call but one way toward social equity and environmental stewardship. Locating space science in wider strategies of sustainable development secures benefits for all nations from the advantages brought about by activities in space, not just the traditional space powers. This chimes with international frameworks such as the UN's Space2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals that encourage collaborative, responsible, innovative uses of space for the good of all humanity.

Essentially, it calls for democratized access to data concerning space science for the emerging nations, underpinned by investments in capacity building and international cooperation that will pave the way for a more equitable and effective stewardship of space resources and technologies.