GReen light for Environmentally Sustainable Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

GReen light for Environmentally Sustainable Schools

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Energy and resources; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Being teachers and in close contacts with our pupils we are conscious about the fact that students today grow up facing big global problems, and especially environmental challenges. Their complexity and extent often leaves a lot of them in a state of apathy and can promote a rather passive attitude. Engagement and action taking can seem meaningless in view of the these challenges.
Therefore, we aimed in this project to develop environmentally sustainable schools as a means for lifelong learning processes. This comprised dealing with environmental challenges as well as acquiring personal, interdisciplinary and intercultural knowledge and initiating lifelong engagement and learning. Furthermore, we aimed to change any passive attitude towards problems that might put our future at stake by educating the students for active citizenship.

The specific objectives in this project were consequently
– to raise students´ awareness for environmental problems in general and especially in their local surroundings, in order to initiate sustainably minded, environmentally conscious thinking.
– to enable students to find solutions for environmental problems.
– to collaborate with the a German resp. Norwegian partner school, schools in the neighborhood, the city councils and with the local media to disseminate best practice examples.
– to develop synergy between environmental education and language learning.
– to prevent early school leaving.

From both secondary schools in all 62 pupils and 5 accompanying teachers were involved in the exchange. The students were 15-17 years old. The planned exchange activities between Nesodden Videregående Skole (NVGS) and Aue Geest Gymnasium (AGG) consisted of the following elements:
All students participated in a field study at their school before the exchange to identify environmental problems in their direct surroundings.
In a first exchange, NVGS visited Germany. The first project day, the Norwegian students stayed in Hamburg. They were accommodated in a hostel and attended a German language class organised by our project partner Aubiko e.V.. Here, they were confronted with typical problems that can come up in a host family, by means of role plays. This made the students feel far more confident to meet their host families. Role plays were also used on a sightseeing tour in Hamburg. Students took roles both as guides and as tourists receiving and giving interesting information on different sightseeing spots. Thereby, they got many possibilities to use the foreign language and got more secure and comfortable when speeking German.

At AGG, the Norwegian students were accommodated in guestfamilies of their German peers in the project.
The German students and teachers had prepared a real German breakfast to welcome the Norwegian students. Then, the environmental pedagogue Oliver Schäfers took all students on a tour into the nearby forest. Here, he showed pictures of animals who had been injured by rubbish (plastics, glass, metal) . These injuries often lead to suffering and and death. So the students were sent out into the forest in order to collect rubbish. They came back with an enormous prey. This hands-on activity made clear that active citizenship can be done very easily and effectively. The German students´ activity radius grew even more in terms of environmental actions. The Norwegians could easily relate to their local forests and Fjord beaches where animals face the very same fade. Back home, a majority av the students involved in GRESS participated in waste-collection activities.

All students visited Gut Karlshöhe in Hamburg, a center for a sustainable lifestyle and education. Here, they saw three different exhibitions on sustainability in everyday life and learned about renewable energy-technology. They reflected on their own energy, material and general consumption and how to reduce it. Finally they presented their results from an indoor and outdoor rally and discussed how to raise awareness for environmentally sustainability at their own schools and homes.
The visit at the recycling center at Stade, the next bigger town close to Harsefeld, made a deep impression on the students. A member of the staff showed them around. Here, they saw the huge amount of trash produced in only one week by the 200 000 inhabitants of Stade – an alarming view. They were shown the different areas of the recycling center and learned how machines sort paper trash according to colour and quality. They also got to know the process of separating and recycling plastic trash and understood that each of them can make a difference – just by sorting waste correctly and especially by reducing it. Both visits let to an increased understanding that action taking is needed to establish an environmentally sustainable school and surrounding. Therefore, the pupils were sincerely motivated to develop a strategy and concrete measures.

Together with our project partner Aubiko, the students prepared the “speaking dustbins” action and thereby gained concrete experiences in action taking. Furthermore, they defined a reasonable action plan for their respective schools. It included measures to prevent waste as well as the implementation of an intelligent waste separation system. Furthermore, AGG and NVGS students planned the construction of an insect hotel at their schools.
The visits and actions were published on eTwinning and on the schools´ official web sides. The students established also close contact with their school councils, engaging them to bring more students into action and pushed their respective school leaderships to implement the measures.

During their stay in Norway, the German students were accommodated 6 days in host families.
All students visited Oslo’s Port Authority, who recently approved a pioneering trash-removal plan. They learned about the specific environmental problems of the Inner Oslo fjord and about a range of successful measures to stop the pollution like drones who are able to trace rubbish in the Inner Oslo Fjord.
They also participated in a workshop let by the initiator of “Marinereparatørene”, a non-profit organization at Nesodden who fights litter pollution in the Oslo fjord and has received the Oslofjordprisen in 2018. Here they learned to trace the trash found in the nearby Fjord back to its origin source, discussed measures for action taking and learned how to organise an awareness-campaign for local inhabitants by using social media strategies.
The students visited also the neighbour school Tangenåsen ungdomsskole and informed the students about their action taking for green schools.
Afterwards, they went to the local shopping center. In the presence of the center manager, they pasted all cans with their funny sayings asking people to dispose their waste in an environmentally responsible manner., which means right in the cans. Here, the local newspaper sent a reporter and wrote an article on the project and the action.
A group of students constructed the insect hotel which now has its place in front of the main entrance at NVGS.
At NVGS, the students presented their temporary results to each other and gave an overview over the difficulties they came across on the way. Thus, they gained from each other´s experiences. At the end, the students had revised and mostly completed their respective action plans as well as the target achievements.
At Ås University, all students finally participated in workshops dealing with renewable energy. Here, they also actively took part in role games that exemplified the different perspectives when it comes to decision taking on the municipal level. By this, they learned to see environmental challenges from different angles and also what it takes to come to satisfying solutions. In a way, it was a training in active citizenship which probably will bear fruit later in live.

The revised action-plans regarding green schools were later published on eTwinning, on the respective schools´ web pages and via the respective school councils. During nine further months the students continued to pursue their (revised) activities.

A final workshop to evaluate the project and achievements was organised on two days via web/video conferences. Measures which had been proposed during the exchanges to achieve environmentally sustainable schools were evaluated and compared. Their long-term impact on the daily school routines were discussed.
Meanwhile, AGG achieved the certification as a “Naturschule”. The school is engaged on a long-term basis to keep up this status. NVGs´ certification as an “Eco School” is still ongoing.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 48894 Eur

Project Coordinator

Nesodden videregående skole & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Aue Geest Gymnasium Harsefeld