REHOVOT, ISRAEL—September 17, 2007—Blue Planet, a curriculum package for middle school students written by Weizmann Institute scientists on the link between man and the environment, has won recognition by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as a worldwide model in environmental studies. This international organization is promoting and financing the translation of the program into different languages, as well as its distribution throughout schools worldwide.
The Blue Planet book was launched by UNESCO's Deputy Assistant Prof. Andras Szollosi-Nagy, Director of the Division of Water Sciences, along with the Weizmann Institute's Prof. Israel Bar-Joseph, Vice President of Resource Development, Prof. Nir Orion of the Science Education Department, and Prof. Dan Yakir, Head of the Environmental Sciences and Energy Research Department. Prof. Orion and his former graduate student Dr. Orit Ben-Zvi Assaraf developed the original program.
Blue Planet places special emphasis on the role of the water cycle in the Earth's ecosystems. The program's effectiveness as a learning tool stems from its wide and systematic approach, including various activities, experiments, and field work that will help develop students' thinking skills and understanding.
A ceremony marking the launch of Blue Planet was held in the Joe Weinstein and Major Max L. Shulman EcoSphere, a unique glass-enclosed geodesic dome located at the Weizmann Institute's Clore Garden of Science, where a Spanish version of the book was presented to the UNESCO representative. In the near future, the authors of the book plan to visit Latin America, where they will help teachers implement this educational program into their own curriculums. The book will later be translated into Chinese and three other languages.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,600 scientists, students, technicians, and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials, and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
