The primary goal that PESES aimed to achieve is to embed environmental sustainability into school curricula, empowering students as main catalysts for change and yielding direct positive impact on our environment. Our specific goal for the duration of the project was to establish a multinational community actively promoting environmental change, that will continue to exist once the project has ended. We aspired to seamlessly integrate a hidden curriculum into formal education, making sustainability a part of daily life at school. We created engaging, interactive methods within the school curriculum, motivating students to learn and assume responsibility for their actions. A key focus was bridging the gap between acquired knowledge and sustainable behaviors in the young students, nurturing a generation committed to environmental responsibility.
When the PESES project first started, we had already seen the negative impact of human activities on the environment, which were evidently highlighted during the 2020 pandemic. The positive side effect of reduced human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted our interconnectedness with nature. As countries are fully back to "normal" now, it is a really important time to reconsider global environmental concerns. Education is a key avenue for fostering environmental sustainability. Our project, PESEs, aimed to raise awareness of critical environmental issues especially focused on students, who are the future of the world. The goal was to create a ripple effect, with partnering students spreading awareness to their family and friends, meaning the impact of our project will go way past the scope of direct participants. Our project exposed young minds to issues like climate change and involved them actively empowering them as essential contributors to the environment. Our project sought to emphasize their role as agents of positive change in improving the environment, therefore promoting a paradigm shift in the importance of helping the environment.