Project Context On the 15th of March 2019 worldwide many pupils decided to make a demonstration instead of going to school and show their opinion against the climate change. In the news the young people said that the grown up people and the society don´t do enough against the climate change at the moment. They were asking: what is the point of education if the society and political decisions don´t take care of the earth and its´future? They really want us to do much more for a better, cleaner and more sustainable future. Our management and the participating organisations really want to work on this important subject and implement the sustainability thinking into many schools in our own regions and hopefully even more widely. In our project "Hand in hand to a sustainable future" we, Anna Kuhnle, Mandy de Vries , Lieselotte Lauritsen and Pia Wellinger, including our schools Salier-Gemeinschaftsschule (Germany), Stichting Aeres Groep (the Netherlands), Ryomgaard Realskole (Denmark) and Kalliolan koulu (Finland) want to work as ambassadors for this important subject. Project Objectives We want to implement the sustainability thinking into European schools´curriculum in a way that more and more schools are able to give and teach knowledge and tools for sustainable life. The time is more than ready for it, because there is now at the moment an exigency for it. We think that schools and education make the spine and baseline for a new way of thinking and acting for the sustainable future. We also want to show the pupils that we take their concerns about the future seriously and we will work for a common interest and target together by learning and making activities together. So we can achieve a lot and influence and infect the motivation to other people than only the participants of the project. Like for example pupils friends, schoolmates and families.Through this project we also think to grow the motivation of language learning because the pupils will have a positive experience by using foreign language. They will get new contacts from different countries and can develop more understanding for new cultures. Project Participants and Profile Description Projects participants come from the Netherlands, Finland, Germany and Denmark. From every country there are ten pupils and three teachers in the project involved who will visit each other. The pupils and teachers will also take part to all learning, teaching and training activities during and between the visits. The pupils are in the age between 11 and 15. The project participants are living in hosting families during the visits. Description of Learning Teaching and Training activities in Holland, Finland, Germany and Denmark In Holland there will be learning activities concerning food and lifestyle. During the visit in the Netherlands on the 10th of October the country is celebrating "sustainability day". In Finland the participants will work on the subject water. They will make a journey to an island called Enonsaari in Vesijärvi (a lake in Hollola). There we will collect together garbage from the lakeside and beaches. On one day is a visit to wastewater treatment plant planned. There the participants get familiar with how the wastewater treatment plant works and what kind of garbage is thrown into the water. We will learn what consequence the garbage in the water has to the plants and fishes. In Germany the participants will work on upcycling and recycling. The idea is to create different types of products made out of things that otherwise would be thrown away. One part is to produce something that will stay at school after the project and that can be used by the students in their daily school life. Therefore we will for example use old furniture like to build new furniture for the common room in the school. Pupils will also create artwork that deals with the subject in a critical way. In Denmark the Hand in Hand for a Sustainable Future will work with sustainable energy. The main target here is to make the pupils consider their own energy consumption, the school, their municipality, and their country. A short description of the expected results and impacts We will make diagrams about the pupils thinking about sustainability during the project and in the end of the project. So we will be also able to see that there is hopefully positive changing happened. Potential long-term benefits We think that the awareness of everyone involved in this project about sustainable development will increase. We also think that the desire to do things at the individual and community level to achieve at least a slow down in climate change will make the pupils and their families act in their personal lives. We want and believe that in the long-term, the thinking of sustainable development can become a matter of course for teachers, students, and also for the pupils families and that they know concrete actions they can put into practice to life a more sustainable life.
Our porject "Hand in Hand to a sustainable future" was inspired by the huge amount of motivation shown by the participants of the "Fridays for future" movement and their intention to inspire the politics to change their climate plans. We asked ourselves: how sustainable are we, our schools and how can we improve our ecological footprint together? Therefore we decided to focus on four different aspects: food and lifestyle, water, recycling and upcycling and sustainable energies. Every country was in charge for one of those aspects. Every country chose an aspect suitable to their school profile and the local surroundings and conditions. The Netherland: Food and lifestyle Finland: Water Germany: Recycling and upcycling Denmark: Sustainable energies It was planned that every school provides activities and workshops about their topic. At the end of the project the students should have been educated in all of the four aspects, so that they can use their new knowledge and the new ideas to make their own school more sustainable. There also were surveys on a regular basis at every school to see if there is a progress. In October 2019 the groups from Denmark, Finland and Germany started their trip to Almere in the Netherlands. In Almere there were workshop and activities about the topic "food and lifestyle". The groups visited an ecological farm and produced a menu by using the products grown at the farm. They also took part in a workshop about cosmetic products and their incredients and tried to find alternatives for them that are more sustainable. With the help of a game they investigated how sustainable the city Almere already is. During a walk in a forest they learned more about the nature in Almere, the local plants and animals as well as about eatable plants. We also visited an exhibition about the climate and nature in a museum in The Hague. To use a sustainable way of transport every student got a rented bike and all the activities in Almere were done by bike. As a teambuilding event and to get to know each other better we also visited a climbing forest. All of the students were able to grow personally during that time. They got more confident self-reliant. They also improved their English skills a lot by using the language daily and in a natural environment. Their new knowledge about sustainablle food and a sustainable lifestyle was adapted by the students in their private life. Before the exchange to Netherlands started every school made a survey to find out how sustainable the students and their families are and how sustainable the schools are. After the exchange they were able to have a ciritical look at it when it comes to food and lifestyle. So they could find starting points to implement new ideas to make their schools more sustainable. As 2020 started the preparations for our second exchange to Finland started. The kids got prepared by talking about the topic "water" in different subjects at school. There also were events to inform the parents about the exchange. On eTwinning the students could find a video of the Finish school. So they could get to know the students and the school a little bit in advance. But then Covid 19 hit the world and our exchange had to be postponed in March of 2020. Soon after that the schools got closed and all of our countries were in a lockdown. This situation was completely new to all of us and other things had to be prioritised. We all thought that this situation will be temporary and we soon will be able to go on with our project as planned. But it didn't get much easier. The German school started again in June 2020, but with a very limited timetable and strict rules. At this point the Danish and Finish schools already had summer holidays. In Septermber 2020 every country was back at school and we had high hopes to continue our project as soons as the students arranged themselves with the new situation at school and all the new rules. But in December 2020 there was a new lockdown and schools in Germany were closed down again. The other schools were partly closed or had a mix of homeschooling and learning at school in smaller groups. The German school was closed until May 2021 and our project time was nearly over. It was nearly impossible to conduct our project during the lockdown and the homeschooling. A lot of our students were poorly equipped when it comes to digital devices. In addition it was hard to reach a lot of them at all. So the first priority was to hold lessons as good as possible and to reach as many kids as possible without seeing them personally. We couldn't continue our project as wished and planned before.