Abstract:

In the last years all countries are called to face environmental, economic and social concerns in the view of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and goals. This plan of action is aimed to achieve globally peace, social equality and prosperity for people and the planet.

This research focuses on building/testing new engaging didactic activities aimed to introduce sustainability topics and to increase environmental awareness among students for taking action towards the environmental protection. Education for sustainability goes beyond the simple transfer of knowledge and it focuses on multiple perspectives, through an holistic and practical approach. For this aim, the didactical activities were carried out using approaches like learning by doing, cooperative learning and learning by playing that put students at the center of the educational process. These approaches are particularly important for introducing the concept of sustainability at school since children, by adopting eco-friendly behaviors and lifestyles, can also contribute to the transformation of society towards the goals of Agenda 2030.

The activities were addressed to 11-12 years old students. The first group of activities focuses on natural resources sustainable consumption and waste production. The didactical approaches used were cooperative learning, learning by doing and learning by playing. Pupils calculated the water, carbon, ecological footprint and the ecological rucksack of everyday life simple actions (eating, washing…). They worked in groups discussing and thinking critically about how their lifestyles can affect Earth’s health. Then, they discussed on how to reduce their ecological footprint, through a puzzle game called “Reduce your footprint”. Furthermore, an engaging and interdisciplinary ludic activity, Sustainable City Game has been realized in the frame of 2030 Agenda. This activity consists in a cardboard game allows to introduce students to topics like utilization of georesouces, actions for climate, circular economy, sustainable cities and communities.

The multidisciplinary approach used allows proposing questions and trials that involve topics of history, geography, science, math and technology closely connected. In the last activity, “How much Earth is in my dish?” students were addressed to the topic of food ecological footprint and responsible consumption, using a a team challenge. This activity allows to make students more aware that a healthy nutrition is good both for humans and the planet. For all the activities, the data were collected though pre-activity and post-activity questionnaires in order to evaluate the sustainability awareness achieved among students. Results show that the experimentations allowed pupils to observe, measure, collect and interpret data, starting from a practical situation on a real topic or a gaming context. The students improve their awareness about sustainability topics and demonstrated a high level of concentration, but also a high emotional involvement, which positively reflected on the acquisition of new competences for more eco-friendly lifestyles.

Keywords:

Teaching sustainability, Agenda 2030, learning by doing.