Supporting and enhancing teachers’ and school leaders’ competencies in promoting environmental awareness to secondary school students through the use of experiential learning methodologies.
Context
Europe’s vision of a greener future is constantly being approached by different policies and actions. For instance, European Green Deal was introduced by the European Commission as it brings together multiple strands of policy to address challenges related to climate change and environmental degradation. In a Eurobarometer survey, the youth set as top priorities for the EU the protection of the environment and the fight against climate change (67%) and the improvement of education and training (56%), proving the importance and the need of acting right away.
UNESCO’s study “Learn for our planet”, analyzed educational curricula in 50 countries and found that more than half don’t make any reference to climate change while biodiversity is covered only by 19%. It also proved that socioemotional skills and action-oriented competencies are not being approached in the classroom.
Climate change and environmental degradation are deeply interconnected and that represent serious risks to the well-being of our societies. Sustainability and related issues have become daily topics of discussion. As a societal challenge, everyone will be called to make their own contribution, and schools will play an important role.
Objectives
- Providing teachers the necessary knowledge about the experiential learning method and how it can be used in environmental education.
- Creating a digital space for educators and students with a set of hands-on educational experiences to enhance students’ environmental awareness.
- Engaging and motivating students to actively participate in experiential learning activities.
- Cultivating intercultural bonds between students and schools by participating in EU mobilities.
- Testing in secondary schools of every partner country the ESTELLA toolkit and assessing the results.
- Raising awareness of the importance of using experiential learning in environmental education in schools.
Activities
- Transnational training in Hungary to test the materials of the workshops and train 2 teacher of each partner organization on how to conduct the national workshops.
- National capacity building workshops for school teachers aimed at enhancing their competences in using experiential learning to teach environmental education.
- International workshop in Italy to train secondary-school educators on how to implement the national piloting and test the digital platform.
- Students’ mobility in France to pilot the learning activities of the ESTELLA toolkit.
- National piloting of experimental learning for environmental awareness in secondary schools, in each partner country.
- Students’ mobility in Greece to pilot the learning activities of the ESTELLA toolkit.
- National conference to raise awareness on the importance of using experiential learning methods in environmental education, in each partner country.
Resources
- ESTELLA toolkit: 7 workshops and 70 activities/learning scenarios to promote environmental awareness among students
- ESTELLA digital platform for teachers and students
- Guide of good practices
Impact
- 14 educators and teachers will be involved in the transnational training in Hungary.
- 130 secondary school educators will participate in the 7 national capacity building workshops.
- 9 teachers will attend to an international workshop in Italy and will be trained to conduct the national pilots.
- 4 teachers and 10 students will participate in a students’ mobility in France involving. They will be engaged in participatory and innovative hand-on experiences in order to learn more about the environment.
- 150 students will be involved in the national piloting activities.
- 4 teachers and 10 students will participate in a students’ mobility in Greece.
- 150 participants will attend to the ESTELLA’s final conferences carried out in each partner country.
