In 2015, our worlds leaders agreed to 17 goals for sustainable development to a better world by 2030. These goals have the power to end poverty, fight inequality and stop climate change. These goals offers us the direction for positive change both for people and the planet. In this project we want to inspire our students to think about their special capacities to share with the world and can offer their actions in order to achieve the Global goals. Through interactive exercises, children are challenged to open up their outlook and to commit to become inspiring planet keepers in their communities and to learn how they can be active participants in shaping the world around them into a better place for all of us. If we want to create a long term sustainable change we have to start with the youngest, and that’s why our work as pedagogues is so important. We want to teach and learn about the global goals from Goal 1 (No Poverty) right though to Goal 17, gobal partnership. We se our work as teachers with great importance for bringing the Sustainable Development Goals into our education. Both localy and globaly, teachers of our world have together the power to achieving the global goals! As teachers, we aim that our students in the end of this project believe they have the power to make a difference for themselves and others. When we connect learning to activities that help our students contribute to the Global Goals their experience helps to build belief in themselves. They can see that their actions are valued and matters to the world and the future. We look at the School as a places where students, teachers and parents gather to collaborate with the wider local, national and global community and as such, have a unique educational responsibility and potential to really create change. The most primary reason that we should act towards achieving our goals and work with the sustainable development goals is that of being able to contribute towards the development of a world that is sustainable and prosperous, for all people. We have the power and unique responsibility to provide the knowledge and necessary skills for the next generation to tackle the big challenges of their time. The main aims is to generate interest about sustainable development in our schools and organisations. We want to educate and engage our children with the Global Goals and encourage them to prioritise the goals in their lifestyles and behaviours. We want our children to cooperate in this project to contribute the development of a European conscience and prepares them to be responsible European citizen who respects the human rights and our environment. We will work towards building an inclusive, sustainable future for everybody and our planet. We will empower our students with the knowledge and the skills, attitudes and behaviours that they will need to act on their knowledge. This project will help to promote the student's creativity through opportunities given by different activities, to learn through play and cooperated with other children, to respected the rules and responsibilities ,accepting the diversity of others, to learn about the global goals and how we could take concrete actions to achieve them. The results that will be created during the project will be spread and available for teachers all around Europe to use in their education and establish at their own institutions. By teaching and work with the global goals we will make environmental changes. We will create new pedagogic contents, and work in innovative ways to engage our students and setting example within their community. The project is a must for our all participants to exchange ideas and best practices across borders, using the global goals as a common framework to set the new standards in education. More than ever, the world needs schools to continue their critical role of raising awareness and addressing pressing global challenges: they need to prepare tomorrow’s leaders and citizens to have a positive impact. During the project, children will share their ideas and their work with other children of European countries ,learn about how they work with the global goals. We will get the sense that we are part of something big! During the project will will learn to be planet keepers that the world need to survive.
Planet keepers - the global game changers is a project that starts to educate preschool children in sustainable development, with the global goals as a theme. We have chosen a large and important subject that is highly topical in society and it`s also a part of the curriculum for both Bulgaria and Sweden. In the cooperation between our countries, we focus on opportunities and solutions and to inspire each other throughout the whole project. We have set up monthly “focus goals” so the children can specialize and meet one or two global goals at the time. Together with the children, we have discussed, broken down and concretized the goals to be able to understand them. According to professor of education Julie M Daivs, there are three dimensions that are crucial in relation to children's possibilities to work with sustainability in everyday life. * Children have the right to express their opinion and make their voice heard - a dimension of rights. * Children are capable of taking part in and shaping their world - a dimension of competence. * Children are important as actors and they have the ability to challenge and act - a dimension of active participation. Through this project, we have taken these three dimensions into account and built two preschools that have added a culture of sustainable development. The project is set up as we are superheroes who are taught to save the world! Each child has received their superhero coat and mask that we wear when we do the planned activities. All educators also have a cloak and mask to participate and cooperate as co-researchers with the children in the various activities. By having inspiring tasks such as the children dressed up like pirates have clean a local beach, investigate where our food comes from, how far it has been transported, the importance of locally grown and organic, food waste (we weighed all the food that we threw away to think about reducing the food waste) it became clear and concrete. The children have also had to work with renewable energy such as solar power, wind power and hydropower and done experiments on all themes to experience the forces. They melted chocolate with just the sun, they built boats that we released in a stream where the children saw that the water moves the boat without us driving it and they have built and constructed their own wind turbines. We as educators have worked for sustainable development and also to be good role models for children, colleagues, other schools and for society. We have taken advantage of everyday life and the daily meetings. The children need present educators who take the time to listen and are committed and curious. We evaluated and discussed the results of the project in our preschools at our last meeting, which we had digitally. Through this project, we have both experienced, seen and learned that everyone in the work team and in the children's group can contribute with something and that it is important to take advantage of everyone's skills so that everyone feels committed and important. If we want to achieve sustainable development, we must become better at managing our resources as humans. In this project, we have seen that the cooperation between our countries has been of utmost importance to achieve the best results as the children's differences contribute to variation and that all educators who participated in the project from both countries have added their different layers of knowledge and experience. We have discussed and combined our knowledge with articles and lectures from researchers and woven in Bulgaria's and Sweden's curriculum goals in order to be able to implement the project at our preschools. In the long term, this project has changed the basic values of the activities as we have seen a difference between children and educators who participated in the project. We notice that the children have acquired knowledge about the global goals. Among other things, we see that food waste has decreased, they pick up rubbish and they protect nature. They think about recycling and not wasting materials or things. They actively turn off lights in the rooms they leave to save energy. For educators who have participated in the project, awareness has increased about sustainable development and has become a basis for teaching. The activities now permeate good values about both nature and fellow human beings. We have inspired each other with exciting teaching and tips regarding the project that took the work forward. We have also chosen better and more sustainable alternatives to food in preschool, healthier snacks and after reading research on children's health, our preschools have implemented break gymnastics every day that helps children get more energy and endure the school day even better. This project has given both students and teachers a new way of acting in their everyday life and we have developed and implemented a sustainable ground with good habits in our organizations.