Teachers and educators have a crucial role in teaching the sustainability experts and leaders for the future. However, they are often absent from the processes formulating the educational response to the global climate crisis. This is about to change now when Teachers for the Planet organization gathered 100 initiatives to highlight the various teacher-led solutions to tackle climate and environment related challenges.
The online repository of the outstanding teacher-led solutions will be launched on 8th December, 2023 at RewirED Summit at the Global Climate Conference COP28 in Dubai. These solutions, compiled from 60 different countries, will be presented to policymakers and leaders in Dubai.
Educational solutions formulated by teachers and education leaders are the key
Teachers are active change-makers in their communities, and many environment and climate related solutions are being designed all over the world in teacher communities – as seen in the quality of the proposals sent to Teachers for the Planet organization. EduSTA Project Lead Eveliina Asikainen and the entire project team is very pleased for being selected.
“According to the organisation the calibre of the solutions proposals was very high, and we are very happy for being able to bring the voice of teachers to the RewirED summit at COP28. Together with the decisionmakers we can affect on positive change on sustainable education”, says Asikainen.
The open digital badges developed in EduSTA provide a flexible tool to incorporate sustainability competences into initial teacher education, and to the training of in-service teachers.
“We are testing and developing this diversity in the pilots during 2024”, Asikainen says.
Teachers for the Planet programme
Teachers for the Planet programme is led by Learning Planet Institute, the Aga Khan Foundation and Teach For All.
The programme aims to create explicit and concrete links between the education and climate change sectors, fostering real impact at school and system levels. It also seeks to produce tangible outputs that will position education actors for climate action and leadership. The coalition and the program see teachers and education leaders in the center of the educational response to the climate crisis.
The link presenting EduSTA on the Teachers for the Planet webpage
The Academy for Sustainable Future Educators (EduSTA) is an Erasmus+-funded, international project to define practical sustainability competences specifically for vocational teachers. The project will design, build, and pilot a system of digital open badges and supporting competency-based learning, learning environments, and learning materials. The project is led by Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK) and partners are Universidad de Girona, Spain, Göteborgs Universitet, Sweden, Hanze UAS, the Netherlands and University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic.
Additional information:
Eveliina Asikainen
EduSTA Project Leader
Senior Lecturer, Pedagogic Innovations and Culture
Tampere University of Applied Sciences
eveliina.asikainen@tuni.fi
Text: Hanna Ylli
EduSTA team’s photo: F. Alkema