Summary
Environmental protection and sustainability are some of the greatest tasks for the future of current and all future generations, which is why the Agenda 2030 of the European Union places them high on the agenda of European policy. In a world in which the oceans drown in plastics, entire regions suffocate in garbage and microplastics have been detected in humans and animals, the behaviour of consumer society must be critically questioned and changed. Through media coverage, this problem is being brought to the attention of an increasing number of people. However, the willingness to actively practice sustainability is still negligible. It is therefore necessary to bridge the gap between purely verbally expressed willingness to protect the environment and practical action and to sharpen awareness for sustainability.
Therefore it is the aim of our project to work together with students aged 13 to 16, from five secondary schools, to learn about the principles of sustainability of the Zero-Waste movement, i.e. the "Rs" Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, Repurpose/Upcycle and Recycle, and to jointly work on concrete implementation options to apply in daily life. In particular, the currently discussed ban on plastic bags and other plastic household items by the EU requires to think about practicable alternatives and their long-term integration into the students' everyday lives. The inter-European cooperation between the praticipating schools will produce results that go beyond national knowledge.
Major goals:
- Awakening of interest in and awareness of environmental and sustainability issues
- Familiarize students with the principles of sustainability: Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair,
Repurpose/Upcycle and Recycle
- Bridging the gap between verbal awareness of the environment and practical sustainable action
- Questioning and changing one's own consumer behaviour and life style
Subordinate goals:
- Getting to know sustainable lifestyles that are environmentally friendly and fit for the future
- Recognising that pupils themselves contribute to environmental damage, are affected by it, but can also remedy it
- Gain an overview of country-specific attitudes towards and behaviour patterns with regard to
sustainability
- Develop awareness that a sustainable lifestyle can save resources, energy and money
The creation of an accompanying homepage represents the “comprehensive" product of our project, in which the various digital sub-products are embedded and made available to the school families and the public on a long-term basis. The sub-products include video recordings of the students' lectures on the main topics of environment and sustainability, as well as podcasts on interviews, an eDiary, V-Logs and DIY videos on the project activities.Methodologically, the gap between purely verbally expressed environmental protection and practical action is bridged by the project participants by organising a clothes swap event, sewing shopping nets, participating in a "Reuse items to Reduce Single-use Plastic" challenge, carrying out plastic fasting and plogging. In addition, they will produce upcycling products in workshops and experience the idea of repairing everyday items in a repair cafe. In order to disseminate the knowledge acquired in the project, the pupils will create flyers and set up an information stand to inform the public.
The results of the products and actions will be channelled in a Google MyMaps for the homepage.
The long-term benefit is to create a map for all partner locations which lists repair cafes, zero-waste and second-hand shops,workshops and comparable sustainable shops in which one can shopwaste-free. Individual "international corners" in each school serve the long-term dissemination of the project results. Since most partner schools do not yet deal with the project's topic in any school subject, our project opens up the possibility that sustainability gains increasing importance at the participating schools and plays a key role in everyday school life. In elective courses a continuously growing circle of pupils is enabled to raise their awareness for environmental problems and to show that the solution for environmental problems lies in the hands of the current generation and that each individual must contribute to it. Through high-profile projects, such as repeated plogging or regular clothes swap events, students become multipliers of sustainability for their peers. Workshops aside from the regular timetable, for example at school events, will ensure that as many people as possible can benefit from the experiences of our project and that the digital materials produced can be used beyond the period of our project.