Compilation of measures co-designed by the educational communities and presented at school and university events
Creators: name: Espluga, Josep
name: Prades, Ana
name: Lehtonen, Markku
name: German, Silvia
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023

description: D4.4. reports on the process of co-designing interventions (measures) to foster sustainability and strengthen sustainability competences in the educational institutions participating in the ECF4CLIM project, at our demonstration sites (DS). We describe the participatory process followed to co-design the measures in question, the demonstration sites where the co-design processes were implemented, and the measures agreed upon in each institution in question. These measures are classified according to the categories of our European Competence Framework for a low carbon economy and sustainability through education, our “roadmap for sustainable education” (D3.3).The co-design process relies on our hybrid participatory approach, partially based on the STAVE tool (Systematic Tool for Behavioural Assumption, Validation and Exploration), which includes elements of research and elements of engagement (Horlick-Jones and Prades, 2014; Espluga et al, 2017), and allows the educational community to jointly identify, understand, assess, and evaluate their own sustainability-related competences and obstacles to improvement. To engage students, teachers, and administrative staff, Sustainability Competence Teams (SCT) were set up at all our demonstration sites. To engage the wider educational community, Sustainability Competence Committees (SCC) were set up, integrating additional actors from the DSs (school directors, sustainability managers, etc.) and other external actors (NGOs, local authorities, etc.). Around 325representatives from our demonstration sites participated in our SCTs and SCCs.

Our demonstration sites comprise 13 educational institutions from Finland, Portugal, Romania and Spain, including in each country one primary school (basic education), one secondary school (high school), and one university. An exception is Romania, where two primary schools serve as DSs – one in an urban and another in a rural area.A total of 159 interventions were co-designed to empower and promote sustainability at our demonstration sites. The specific measures in Finland, Portugal, Romania, and Spain aim to initiate various types of positive change:- Measures to promote the change in the conditions (73 measures): targeted at the environmental performance (e.g., equipment, infrastructure, and introduction of methods for monitoring issues such as water, waste, energy, green spaces, and mobility)- Measures to promote change in the system (52): targeted at the collective competences (pedagogical measures, support for sustainability groups, changes in curricula, cultural and organisational modifications, strategic plans, etc.)- Measures to promote change in the people (34): targeted at the individual competences (e.g., information and awareness campaigns and training addressed to both students and teachers)In addition, some interventions are designed to link the three dimensions.All along the implementation and monitoring process in our next work package, WP5, specialattention will be paid to the ways in which the selected measures relate to the four steps in ourroadmap: engagement, connections, visions, and actions.Finally, significant challenges for participatory research in educational settings deserve beinghighlighted: substantial time and resource constraints at the DSs; frequent changes of contactpersons at the DSs (difficulties to retain committed individuals); limitations posed by othereducational commitments, requirements, and schedules. To overcome such challenges, flexibility inthe application of the participatory techniques and tools is crucial.