Description
Due to our environmental emergency, sustainability education is no longer only a topic taught in universities and in the business sector like it used to be but is now becoming integrated and prioritized from the earliest stages of the educational development of future adults.
This course will help teachers introduce sustainability in their classrooms, as well as in their school’s curriculum, with a step-by-step approach from the basic definition to developing a sustainable project for your school.
Hence, the first objective of the course will be to explain what sustainability is, how it affects our daily life, and how companies and governments are reacting to a challenge that 10 years ago was just a “nice newspaper headline”.
As a participant, you will also learn how to add this topic to your ongoing classes. Accordingly, the course will introduce innovative approaches to raising engagement and developing life skills and knowledge such as Project-Based Learning (PBL), and Teaching Beyond Subjects. Together, we’ll have brainstorming sessions and open discussions on topics that are controversial.
We will practice using some applications to facilitate classwork and engagement from students. We will also analyze how modern society, especially companies, are reacting to the new challenge.
By the end of the course, you will understand the key terms that relate to sustainability, know the most fundamental theories on the subject, and be able to access the most important sources of information.
You will also have acquired many ideas on how to introduce sustainability to your academic curricula and community/extra-curricular projects using apps, PBL, and Teaching Beyond Subject.
Learning outcomes
The course will help the participants to:
- Cover basic theories;
- Add sustainability to current courses and school activities;
- Discover teaching methods such as PBL and Teaching Beyond Subject concepts;
- Reflect on life skills and core competencies for continuing education;
- Use apps to increase student engagement;
- Create a sustainable project for their school using PBL.
Tentative schedule
Day 1 – Introduction to the course and sustainability 101
- Introduction to the course, the school, and the external week activities;
- Icebreaker activities;
- Presentations of the participants’ schools;
- Focus on Un sustainable development goals.
Day 2 – Sustainability today
- The industry point of view: what are we really doing?
- Greenwashing Focus.
Day 3 – Teaching skills, a new approach
- Life skills;
- Higher-order thinking skills (HOTS)
- Teaching Beyond Subjects.
Day 4 – Add sustainability to your classes with PBL
- Introduction to PBL;
- Digital apps and collaborative suites for PBL activities.
Day 5 – Create a Sustainable Project for schools
- How to make your school activities more sustainable;
- Managing a sustainability project;
- Presentation of the participants’ projects.
Day 6 – Course closure and cultural activities
- Course evaluation: round-up of acquired competencies, feedback, and discussion;
- Awarding of the course Certificate of Attendance;
- Excursion and other external cultural activities.