The project “Be the Change” addresses the environmental challenges we are facing today. The main objective of our project is to develop new cross-curricular teaching and learning practices to develop skills and competences necessary to meet these challenges. Such teaching and learning practices will foster the development of social, civic (democratic) and intercultural competences, science and media literacy, critical thinking, ICT skills, as well as increased environmental awareness fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. In line with the UN goals for Sustainable Development the project builds on the idea that a successful sustainable development agenda requires the establishment of inclusive partnerships locally, regionally and globally. The project partners from Portugal, Spain, France, Bulgaria, Greece and Norway were chosen on the basis of the project having broad support in both the school administration and staff as well as a highly qualified and dedicated staff. Another common denominator of the project schools is the fact they are all in the process of establishing local networks that will provide the project with local expertise on environmental issues and on the pedagogics of sustainability. We consider it a great strength to the project that the partners represent a wide range of European countries from north to south, east to west, reflecting the diversity within the European Union. The project activities are designed to incorporate the three important elements of Education for Sustainable Development underlined by Palmer (1998): “Education about, in and for the environment”: By approaching the topic from different angles and giving students the skills to critically evaluate information, we hope to educate our students about the environment. By giving our students the opportunity to explore real life problems and challenges through a wide variety of phenomenon-based and practical activities, and by taking them outdoors to enjoy nature, we aim to educate them in the environment. By continuously focusing on developing soft-skills through philosophical dialogues, innovative use of ICT, appreciation of nature, role playing of scenarios, practicing social entrepreneurship and other collaborative tasks with a focus on inclusion, we intend to give them the competency to solve problems and cooperate fruitfully with others and to respect each others differences. In addition to this both students and teachers will experience being part of an international community taking action for the environment. We expect that all the participants and targets groups in this project will increase their environmental awareness and broaden their knowledge of the complex mechanisms of sustainable development. As the project title implies, the partner schools will not simply "talk the talk" but "walk the walk" and hereby transform their practices in a more sustainable direction in collaboration with important stakeholders locally, regionally, nationally and globally. Last but not least, one of our main goals is the interchange of innovative teaching practices among the schools involved. One of the UN goals is to “revitalize global partnership for sustainable development”. We consider our project "Be the Change" to be a small contribution in line with this important global scope.
The project “Be the Change” has addressed the environmental challenges we are facing today. The main objective of our project was to develop new cross-curricular teaching and learning practices, and to develop skills and competences necessary to meet these challenges. Such teaching and learning practices will foster the development of social, civic (democratic) and intercultural competences, science and media literacy, critical thinking, ICT skills, as well as increased environmental awareness fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. In line with the UN goals for Sustainable Development the project builds on the idea that a successful sustainable development agenda requires the establishment of inclusive partnerships locally, regionally and globally. It is all project schools shared opinion that the project “Be the Change” has contributed positively to the professional development of the teachers involved, as well as heightened all praticipants' awareness of the environmental and social challenges the earth is facing today and provided them with opportunities and a repertoire to act accordingly. The success of the project can largely be explained by looking at three key factors: First of all the effort made to establish good connections to local institutions with expertise such as the University for Life Sciences in Ås, as well as local NGO’s working with both Human Rights and Environmental problems. This has given teachers confidence that they are updated and knowledgeable on a topic that was not on the curriculum in their teacher education. The fact that students get to interact with and learn from real-life people who work in the field (not only teachers) also triggers their entrepreneurial curiosity and ables them to picture themselves as being part of the solution, not mere bystanders taking in information about a “dark-future”. Secondly it has been incredibly inspiring and valuable to work with the others partners in the project. As all partners have been very ambitious and hard-working, we have pushed each-other’s work forward by sharing cross-curricular lesson-plans, students work and inspiring material/resources, as well as discussed difficulties we have encountered. The cooperation on TwinSpace, the Transnational meeting in Norway and the LTT’s have allowed us to create a shared identity connected to the slogan/project title “Be the Change”. Through the philosophical dialogues that have taken place in each LTT the students have been able to voice their opinions in a respectful and caring atmosphere and they have taken on the role as “ambassadors of change”,both on the visits and when we have returned home to our local schools. Learning about cultural, geographical, social and economical differences within Europe by living with families and exploring the localities of our partnering schools have broadened student’s horizons, awoken their curiosity and empathy and strengthened their feeling of being a Global Citizen, which is in accordance with the stated project goals and in line with the UN sustainability goals as pointed out in part E of our application. Thirdly, the fact that this project all the way from the start has been carried out as a whole school project in most of the partner schools with the support of the school administration and entire staff has been crucial to its success. Looking back at the completed project Be the Change what is also striking is that the timing of the project could not have been better. When we started writing the application it seemed we knew quite a lot about the challenges connected to Climate Change, but lacked the willpower, spokespeople and tools to act and truly change things. Meanwhile there has arisen an international movement of young people, from august 2018 led by the Swedish teenager Gretha Thunberg, demanding change for future generations and challenging governments worldwide to act. This contextual change has played into our project and utterly strengthened its actuality and impact.