Environmental education (EE) increases knowledge and awareness
of the environment around us. The City of Cape Town is committed to the environmental education of its staff and the public, with a strong focus on schools.

The City has developed an Environmental Awareness, Education and Training Strategy, which provides a framework to guide its various environmental awareness, education and training initiatives.

A number of EE projects and programmes are run by the Environmental Resource Management Department. These include:

1) The Youth Environmental School (YES) Programme, which is a year-round programme of EE activities with learners and educators. The YES Programme is the perfect vehicle through which our city’s youth can gain knowledge and respect for their environment. Environmental education facilities and staff are also present at several of the City's nature reserves and sites, where school groups can arrange to visit.

2) YES EduNet, the YES educators’ network, aims to empower and capacitate educators around environmental issues and provides an online ‘one-stop-shop’ for EE resources, information and invitations to workshops, amongst others. Educators need only  complete a brief registration form to join. Membership is free.

3) The Cape Teaching Institute EE Course for Educators of the Western Cape Education Department is a 10-day EE training course which enables educators to develop and implement practical curriculum-based lessons focusing on an environmental issue.

4) Participation at The Orbes Media Careers Fair, making it possible for the youth to gain exposure to further education and training opportunities in environmentally related careers.

5) The Youth, Urban Nature and GIS project enables secondary school youth to experience how nature conservators use GIS technology to monitor and care for nature. They learn about it by doing practical fieldwork, and in so doing supplement their textbook and computer laboratory knowledge.

6) On International Coastal Cleanup Day, school learners and the general public volunteer to help clean up the beaches and waterways in the city's 307 km coastline, removing debris and rubbish in a mass clean-up operation.

7) The City’s Blue Flag beach EE programme provides environmental education and information to schools, the public, decision makers and tour operators about each of the several prestigious Blue Flag beaches within the city of Cape Town.

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