Sustainable Europe 2030 – There are solutions everywhere! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Sustainable Europe 2030 – There are solutions everywhere!

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Energy and resources; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The Erasmus+ project “Sustainable Europe 2030 – There are solutions everywhere!” focused on the exploration of a sustainable Europe 2030, in reference to the 2030 Agenda of the UN, and of the diverse solutions that can be discovered in different regions of Europe to achieve this goal. The target group were ca. 400 15-19 year-old students and – through the presentation of the project findings on a joint Web-TV system – the school communities of the five partner institutions in Germany, France, Portugal, Iceland and the Czech Republic. At the heart of the project lay the pooling of local and regional resources for environmental education at all five partner locations for a more effective transfer of knowledge about the challenges of and solutions to sustainability to the target groups. Methodologically, the project used the partners’ joint Web-TV as its prime educational tool on which students presented their findings. The students acquired both diverse scientific methodologies in their explorations of environmental issues and strong media skills through their prodiction of film materials and presentations for the Web-TV.
Context: Within the life-time of today’s students in Europe and around the world, many of the natural resources on which our economies are based will be depleted or become exceedingly expensive at present excavation rates, climate change will significantly alter local and regional environments, biodiversity will be enormously reduced around the world at present extinction rates, to name but three grave challenges of sustainability present-day generations are facing. Consequently, environmental education has become an essential part of school curricula throughout Europe. However, because of the global dimension of sustainability, environmental education is confronted with a triple fatalism trap in students’ perceptions: That their individual effort will not make any difference, that problems are too complex to be solved, that it it is too late for change. The project aimed at “empowerment” of the students to counter these fatalisms: Giving students the sense that they are able to change the world towards sustainability through the experience that they can join forces with their age groups in other countries and around the world, and by making them recognize that expertise to solve the sustainability challenge can be found in many different places, which can be pooled in international cooperation.
Implementation: At the outset of the project, the students of the five partner institutions produced and presented to each other film clips about their regions’ particular vulnerabilities to global environmental threats. The project thus provided the students with a direct experience how their regions’ environmental problems are interconnected.
With this background of globally interconnected challenges, the project’s main focus then lay on students exploring together solutions for a sustainable Europe 2030. As expressed in the second part of the project title (“There are solutions everywhere!”), this was done by drawing on expertise and know-how in all five partner regions. At the heart of this process were the project’s four Learning, Teaching, Tranining Activities (LTTAs), each focusing on a different key aspect of human life according to special expertise in the hosting region. Student delegations of all partner schools came together to draft future scenarios of a sustainable Europe 2030 in that specific sphere of human life, guided and aided by local experts: “Sustainable Food and Consumption 2030” (1st LTTA in Lannion/France), “Sustainable Energy Supply 2030” (2nd LTTA in Reykjavik/Iceland), “Sustainable Construction and Housing 2030” (3rd LTTA in Valašské Meziříčí/Czech Republic), “Sustainable Mobility 2030” (4th LTTA in Emden/Germany). External partners at the LTTAs included Volkswagen and University of Applied Science in Emden, energy companies in Iceland, stakeholders in farming and environmental organizations in France and companies with sustainable construction solutions in the Czech Republic. In addition six Volkswagen apprentices joined the student teams at the German LTTA.
The LTTA’s sustainability scenarios set the theme for the phases between LTTA meetings: At each school, students produced film ads promoting certain key actions presented in the Sustainable Europe 2030 scenarios of the last LTTA to be broadcast on the joint Web-TV system.
Two Transnational Project Meetings served the detail planning of the the project at the beginning and the project evaluation at the end.
At the end of the project, most of the project’s film and presentation products were made available on the project websit as possible teaser material and flipped-classroom inputs for environmental education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 123225 Eur

Project Coordinator

Johannes-Althusius-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Instituto de Formaçao Profissional Albino Sousa Cruz – OFICINA Escola Profissional do Instituto Nun’Alvres
• Lycée Félix Le Dantec
• Stredni prumyslova skola stavebni Valasske Mezirici
• Fjolbrautaskolinn vid Armula