In our current society, climate change and environmental sustainability have become some of the most relevant topics. World leading organizations claim that the fight against global warming must take priority if we want to combat the long lasting effects that it will cause. In fact, the United Nations’ sustainable development goals for 2030 encompasses many goals linked to environmental sustainability. The 13th goal specifically calls for climate action to stop global warming claiming that emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up by almost 50% since 1990. Action must be urgently initiated by all key players in society, especially in schools as educating the students will create a positive ripple effect that will be very beneficial to our environment. As businesses start to open up again after the covid-19 pandemic, it is of utmost importance to use this opportunity for a systematic paradigm shift to a more sustainable society.
In the context of our current situation, PESEs intends to increase awareness about environmental sustainability in students starting from early stages in education. We plan to do it in an organic and personal way: focusing on the main current global environmental issues, while using students’ personal digital stories. Thus, we will use real student experiences and activities demonstrating the role of experiential learning in education. During this project, students and teachers from schools in 5 different countries, (Spain, Poland, Turkey, Italy and Ireland) will be encouraged to take active action outside the classroom. As a reference, the Pachamama Alliance (www.pachamama.org), an environmental conservation organization, describes four levels of societal action to generate change regarding the climate crisis: individual (ie. recycling at home, using public transport), family and friends (via the people we are connected to), community and local institutions (raising awareness in schools and your local community, such as described in PESEs), and finally via changing policy and economic measures (e.g. the “Paris Agreement”or the Kyoto Protocol to reduce climate change). We will focus on the first three levels, but strongly feel that it is the initiator of social change forcing policies against climate change. A central idea for our project is that hands-on environmental education and prevention is of dire immediacy and importance.
PESEs is committed to eco-educating by having students create, for example, their own green edu-games, initiating school gardens, growing their own food, making compost, recycling at school and at home, restoring local degraded areas, among many other innovative ideas that will be generated by students from 5 EU schools, as well as shared with others, and creating an active learning space for the participants. PESEs’s main objective is to bridge the gap between acquired knowledge and behavior concerning environmental sustainability in the younger population at their schools. It is, in fact, where they spend most of their daytime. There will be an initial teacher training workshop on Digital Storytelling (DST); these teachers will help-teach students produce their own digital stories related to environmental sustainability at their local schools. Another important aim is to empower these students into becoming vectors for this information, catalysts for the power of these educational tools, and encourage them to bring them into their homes and local communities. In addition, we will create channels for students to voice their concerns, to become engaged and seek more involvement about sustainable development from their local (and international) student communities.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
In our current society, climate change and environmental sustainability have become some of the most relevant topics. World leading organizations claim that the fight against global warming must take priority if we want to combat the long lasting effects that it will cause.
In fact, the United Nations’ sustainable development goals for 2030 encompasses many goals linked to environmental sustainability. The 13th goal specifically calls for climate action to stop global warming claiming that emissions of carbon dioxide have gone up by almost 50% since 1990. Action must be urgently initiated by all key players in society, especially in schools as educating the students will create a positive ripple effect that will be very beneficial to our environment. As businesses start to open up again after the covid-19 pandemic, it is of utmost importance to use this opportunity for a systematic paradigm shift to a more sustainable society.
In the context of our current situation, PESEs intends to increase awareness about environmental sustainability in students starting from early stages in education. We plan to do it in an organic and personal way: focusing on the main current global environmental issues, while using students’ personal digital stories. Thus, we will use real student experiences and activities demonstrating the role of experiential learning in education. During this project, students and teachers from schools in 5 different countries, (Spain, Poland, Turkey, Italy and Ireland) will be encouraged to take active action outside the classroom. As a reference, the Pachamama Alliance (www.pachamama.org), an environmental conservation organization, describes four levels of societal action to generate change regarding the climate crisis: individual (ie. recycling at home, using public transport), family and friends (via the people we are connected to), community and local institutions (raising awareness in schools and your local community, such as described in PESEs), and finally via changing policy and economic measures (e.g. the “Paris Agreement”or the Kyoto Protocol to reduce climate change). We will focus on the first three levels, but strongly feel that it is the initiator of social change forcing policies against climate change. A central idea for our project is that hands-on environmental education and prevention is of dire immediacy and importance.
PESEs is committed to eco-educating by having students create, for example, their own green edu-games, initiating school gardens, growing their own food, making compost, recycling at school and at home, restoring local degraded areas, among many other innovative ideas that will be generated by students from 5 EU schools, as well as shared with others, and creating an active learning space for the participants. PESEs’s main objective is to bridge the gap between acquired knowledge and behavior concerning environmental sustainability in the younger population at their schools. It is, in fact, where they spend most of their daytime. There will be an initial teacher training workshop on Digital Storytelling (DST); these teachers will help-teach students produce their own digital stories related to environmental sustainability at their local schools. Another important aim is to empower these students into becoming vectors for this information, catalysts for the power of these educational tools, and encourage them to bring them into their homes and local communities. In addition, we will create channels for students to voice their concerns, to become engaged and seek more involvement about sustainable development from their local (and international) student communities.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.