In the ever-evolving landscape of education, integrating sustainability into curricula has emerged as a critical endeavour to bring sustainability education to life. The research consortium partners within the Academy for Sustainable Future Educators (EduSTA) are working on this by designing and validating an open-access badge constellation for any teacher in Europe wanting to further develop his/her professional competences to strengthen learning for sustainability.
A badge constellation representing the competences crucial for sustainable educator
Throughout 2023, researchers from the various educational institutions in this project (Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic) collaborated in four international teams to develop a badge constellation representing the competences crucial for sustainable educator.
Each project team focused on one of the four areas of the badge constellation to develop clearly demarcated and achievable micro-badges as small pieces of the puzzle that come to being a sustainability educator. Now when we have developed the badges, it is time to validate them by having educators to follow independent and guided learning modules to pave the way towards the competence demonstration.
Through developing the micro-badges, the teams progressed their own competences as well, embracing the complexity that different languages, cultures, contexts and needs entail.
Are you curious of lessons learnt of sustainable development in education by project team members, and the challenges of bringing sustainability education into life? Watch out the videos recorded about developing the EduSTA badge constellation during the most recent consortium meeting in Groningen.
In her introduction of the macro badge Sustainability Literacy, Jenni Majuri explains the need for balance between sustainability knowledge and the teaching practice.
Marta Gual Oliva and Corine Seelen reflect on the Learning Ecosystems Design badge and their personal learning processes.
Joost Haverkort and Hanna Teräs discuss the need for actual action to achieve change and what this means for the teachers roles, captured in the macro-badge Enabling Action.
Lauren Verheijen, Jaume Ametller and Eveliina Asikainen illustrate the final badge Reflexive practice by walking the talk in reflecting on their own work in the design process.
Check the videos from Hanze University of Applied Sciences website!
Text: Lauren Verheijen & Elles Kazemier
Photos: Screenshots from the video clips