Sustainable development – local challenges in a global perspective: Otta ungdomsskole has since 2011 participated in a National project called The Sustainable backpack., and our angle to the project has been sustainable development. The main aim of the Sustainable backpack is to increase awareness, understanding and competencies in and for sustainable development to teachers and students in primary and secondary education. The Sustainable backpack, is a national priory initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Climate and Environment to support Norwegian schools to implement Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The Directorate for Education and Training and The Norwegian Environment Agency are given the responsibility of implementing the Sustainable backpack in concert with the Norwegian Center for Science Education. Requirements to ESD projects or programs supported by the Sustainable backpack is that the teaching is inquiry-based and inter- or multi-disciplinary, and that part of the teaching is carried out at alternative learning arenas(http://www.natursekken.no/artikkel/vis.html?tid=2104906 . In the period 2011-2014, since we participated in this project, we have developed a local curriculum on the theme sustainable development based on competence aims in K06 (The Norwegian national Curriculum). Sustainable development is an important theme internationally, and throughout the project an idea has grown to reality, and we decided to try to expand the work to a transnational project. In our opinion, it would be very interesting to have contact with other countries to learn more about challenges others have in their local environment. Sustainable development has been on the agenda for several years. It is a focus area both nationally and internationally, and it is a central area in our curriculum. In this project we want to focus on challenges we have on sustainable development in our local environment, and search for similarities and differences internationally in order to stimulate and create a commitment amongst youths of today. Sustainable development is about containing the needs of the people who live today, at the same time as we preserve our resources for future generations. In our opinion, young people in our time need a focus that can strengthen and develop respect, commitment and care for the nature- and culture-environment in their local surroundings. This can be done in different ways, and we think different countries and areas will have both differences and similarities in what challenges they meet, and therefore different approaches to the topic. Economic challenges and changes in work markets increase a need to think differently. How are we going to take advantage of the resources we have in our local environment at the same time as we take into account the vulnerability of our nature? We want to focus on sustainable development to develop the understanding of how local use or misuse of nature is crucial to secure our future. This is why we find it interesting to cooperate with other countries/areas to contribute with our experieces on the work and to learn more about how they work with this theme. In the Norwegian national curriculum, LK06 Competance aims in Natural Sciense after Year Level 10, an area called "The budding researcher"( http://www.udir.no/kl06/NAT1-03/Hele/Kompetansemaal/Kompetansemal-etter-10-arstrinn/?lplang=enge) We have used observation and knowledge to develop a deeper understanding of how local use or misuse of nature can influence global development. We think it would be interesting if other schools could show other approaches to the theme. The theme opens for many questions that contribute to reflection. It is up to us, as adults, to stimulate healthy values and to help the pupils to make good choices when it comes to right or wrong. Our role, as adults, is to help the young throughout the process to reflect on important questions. During this work, we can contribute to raise consciousness and strengthen respect for nature – and cultural environment locally, and in addition to this create engagement. To make good and wise choices can contribute to securing a good and healthy future. We wish to connect with schools from different European countries, and have found exellent partner countries through the e-twinning community. There are two reasons why we want a transnational project, on the one hand, it will be interesting to get to know more about the challenges they have and what is done to handle it. On the other hand, we will be able to take advantage of some of the languages we offer our pupils as a second language. We want English as our work language in an CLiL approach, because we think all of the pupils will profit on the work and realize the importance of multilingualism.
Sustainable development – local challenges in a global perspective: Otta Secondary School participated in a project related to the Sustainable Backpack from 2011. The main aim of the Sustainable backpack is to increase awareness, understanding and competence in and for sustainable development to teachers and students in primary and secondary education. It is a national priority initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Climate and Environment to support Norwegian schools to implement Education for Sustainable Development. Otta Secondary School developed a local curriculum on the topic based on competence aims in LK06 (The Norwegian National Curriculum). The method used on the topic Wild Reindeer and Rondane National Park, was inquiry-based and the work inter/multi-disciplinary. Our experience was that the work was very motivating for the students, it stimulates basic skills and was a good method for being able to adapt the education to different levels. At the same time, the work promoted transversal skills such as critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving and initiative. We wanted to develop the project further and collaborate with other European schools in order to contribute with our experiences and learn from the partners experience with work on similar topics. We used the e-Twinning community to find partners, and this is the background for our application in 2015. Our main ambition was to increase students' competence in foreign language, increase level of digital competence, strengthen motivation to active participation in society and use activities that would foster transversal skills through CLIL. To achieve the objectives, we wanted to focus on a question-based method making scientific questions and hypothesis. The partner-countries used local topics related to sustainable development as starting point for their work, and the students shared and adapted knowledge and skills based on their own research throughout the project. Some of the partners had long experience in collaborating with other schools through both Comenius and Erasmus+, while some of the schools had less experience in such work. All the schools contributed with different areas of expertise, which has resulted in new knowledge and skills for teachers participating as well. We wanted to focus on challenges others have in their local environment, and search for similarities and differences internationally in order to stimulate and create a commitment amongst youths of today. The topic is about containing the needs of the people who live today, at the same time as we preserve our resources for future generations. Our opinion has been that young people in our time need a focus that can strengthen and develop respect, commitment and care for the nature- and culture-environment in their local surroundings. We need to give young people the opportunity to gain knowledge and develop skills that provide them with action competences. Teachers and students has experienced that this can be done in different ways, and that although there may be differences in approaches, there are a lot of similarities in the challenges they meet. The 5E-model has been helpful in organizing a structure for stimulating action competences. The project Sustainable Development in local communities has focused on how we can take advantage of the resources we have in our local environment at the same time as we take into account the vulnerability of our nature. Economic challenges, climate challenges and changes in work markets increase a need to think differently. Our focus on sustainable development has been to develop the understanding of how local use or misuse of nature is crucial to secure a good future. The topic opens for many questions and we have seen that is has contributed to reflection. Teachers and other stakeholders has worked to stimulate healthy values and to help the pupils to make good choices when it comes to right or wrong. The students have shown to be creative and innovative in their contribution with ideas that can ensure a sustainable future. Throughout the work of this project we have gotten to know a lot of excellent partner schools, and we have seen a lot of interesting working methods and models. It has been interesting to get to know more about the challenges they have and what is done to handle it. In addition to this, it has been very rewarding and motivating to meet so many dedicated teachers that has a great interest in sustainable development.