Jyväskylä’s Steiner Waldorf School is launching an educative sustainability project funded by the Finnish National Board of Education.
The project will promote practical education on sustainability through a holistic approach in school, as well as identify and introduce new learning environments, and increase outdoor education. Learning environments that promote biodiversity and the disengagement of carbon consumption, will be designed and established in the school’s neighborhood. Students will create learning environment maps of the natural and built environments to be used in the lessons of different subjects and grades. Learning outdoors in a variety of learning environments enhances the experiential nature of learning, as well as increases active movement and time spent in nature, while promoting the development of the pupils’ relationship with nature.
The project aims to reinforce environmental issues and create a clear model and materials to concretize and integrate sustainability objectives (Finnish Curriculum, Agenda2030, Green Comp) into educational content and practices. The goal is that through teaching and everyday school work, pupils will develop a strong relationship with nature and a multidisciplinary understanding along with competence in planetary sustainability.
The project will develop teaching materials to support phenomenon-based and perceptive learning. The materials are intended to support/facilitate the implementation of sustainability in education in different learning environments.
The project will also produce a learning environment guide, materials and a practical curriculum for sustainability in education to support teachers and education providers in implementing the national curriculum’s sustainability goals in practical school work. The materials produced and practices developed during the project will be piloted in the Steiner Waldorf school network in Finland and later in other schools. The materials, guides and models will be freely available to all education providers in the autumn of 2024.
The project will be implemented by the Jyväskylä Steiner Waldorf School in cooperation with advisors from the Meijän polku (Our Path) initiative, environmental educators, and other specialists.
For more information, please contact
Katri Willman
katri.willman@jklsteinerkoulu.fi
http://oivalluksiaoppimisymparistoissa.fi