Project Description
The SUSTAIN contributes to the challenges cities and regions throughout Europe face by developing education innovation that surpasses school boundaries and a rigid curriculum. The SUSTAIN project builds on state-of-the-art learning good practices to empowers pupils and teachers to engage with real-life challenges, challenges that require them to think for themselves, step out of the classroom and connect to professional networks that serve sustainable development in their region.
The project strives to:
• Spark dialogue on sustainable landscapes between secondary schools, universities and other educational providers to articulate a sense of urgency for regional sustainable development goals,
• Champion the importance of regional bottom-up so-called STEM learning ecosystems to formal and informal education providers, identify key actors and set a shared regional science education agenda,
• Deeply engage pupils and their caregivers in three countries with hands-on citizen science work, thus stimulating critical thinking and raising interest in STEM learning and work,
• Equip school teachers with the skills to bring together formal and informal learning for citizen science, through a comprehensive professional development programme,
• Commit to incremental growth in the excellence of the above initiatives and networks, and build capacity to improve science education through a tailored evaluation, monitoring and peer-learning programme,
• Identify good practices on science education and/or citizen science and disseminate them at regional, national and international scales.
Intellectual outputs (all materials also available in the English language):
• A series of online learning modules on sustainable landscapes for secondary schools pupils available to school teachers in the EU, and an increased awareness of the urgency to contribute to the local environment;
• A series of online learning modules on academic skills to foster critical thinking (as essential 21st century skill) by secondary schools pupils. These modules will be available for school teachers in EU countries;
• A series of guides, protocols, workshops and webinars to support the professionalization of teachers in formal and informal education to use their regional learning environment to the fullest;
• A series of protocols for the initiation and exploitation of sustainable STEM learning ecosystem/hubs, and living demonstrators in each of the three countries, each one consisting of secondary schools, universities and other providers of science education;
• Guides and protocols for science festivals, and science cafés, on sustainable landscapes which engage pupils, peer group, caregivers and the general public; and for multiplier events that reach out to engage caregivers of pupils and students, their peer groups, as well as the general public with this educational innovation on sustainable landscapes.
