Planet keepers – The global game changers Erasmus Project

Project Title

Planet keepers – The global game changers

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

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.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/92886/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 11415 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kättilsmåla förskola & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Detska gradina N 8 “Yuriy Gagarin”