Abstract:

The world of this day and age is characterised by overwhelming variability of conditions and trends. People are often required to alter their attitudes, habits and behaviour patterns over the lifetime on account of the changing trends and the policies currently being implemented. School education is the means to prepare each person to handle life at the given time. What is required in adult life is additional education making it possible to extend one’s knowledge with regard to individual themes and problems. However, what also proves to be crucial is the flow of information that stigmatises former attitudes or inappropriate habits as invalid.
In everyday life, one encounters numerous new problems which can be solved more easily if only the educational content should be adequate. An example supporting the foregoing statement may be the importance of ecology considerably growing over the recent years as well as the environmentally friendly behaviour patterns observed. The main pre-assumed objective of the study has been the need for the former attitudes to be substituted with different ones, taking also the environmental aspect into consideration. This pertains to many spheres of life, starting from consumption to modes of travelling and utilisation of natural resources of raw materials.
The methodology adopted for the sake of the article focuses on discussing the problem of adult education. The target group chosen for the study was formed by local authorities. They are all people who have influence on how cities are developed. This group also bears partial responsibility for the environmental impact exerted by cities. One of the efforts undertaken under the international “S-mile” project (financed from the means of the National Centre for Research and Development) is building a system which may significantly expand the knowledge available to local authorities, thus improving the quality of life of city dwellers. In this respect, the need for education is particularly not to be overestimated. By means of adequate educational content, the system being developed educates adults while they perform their regular duties at work. Moreover, the methodology on which the project is based enables the system to rely on up-to-date information collected from the city as it functions on a daily basis. Therefore, the educational content delivered and the outcomes obtained in the sphere of the knowledge acquired by the target group are built on grounds of real life data.
In summary, the result of the educational process assumed to be performed is to change former habits and to mould attitudes while everyday routines are followed. The research training ground has become the international “S-mile” research project implemented under the ERANET programme by a consortium of institutions from three countries: Poland, the Basque Country (Spain) and Turkey. Solutions similar to those discussed in the article may well be applied in different spheres of life.

Keywords:

New trends in education, behaviour changes, adult education, sustainable development of cities.