Alignment between the vision and the learning environment is important to bring learning for sustainable development to life. How do users of the building, plaza, cafeteria, and classrooms perceive that sustainable thinking and practice matter? This can be done in many ways. Think of renewable energy, recycling, a healthy, sustainable canteen, a repair shop and classrooms and plazas with lots of greenery. This creates a school that breathes sustainability.
As a school, you also demonstrate the values you strive for in your policy and business operations. Think of facilitating sustainable transport, green ICT, circular construction or renovation and the use of sustainability criteria when entering into contracts for purchasing, energy or cleaning.
Thereby, the challenge is also to connect concrete sustainability challenges of the school organization with curriculum education, by letting students and pupils think, learn and help realize them. In addition to these examples, you also see schools paying attention to social aspects of sustainability. After all, the aforementioned Sustainable Development Goals are also about, for example, participation, equality, inclusion and dealing with diversity.
Questions to discuss with each other
- Where are sustainability efforts already underway in the building and in operations?
- How do we communicate what we do to young people, (new) colleagues and visitors?
- What opportunities do our building and operations offer for connection to education?
- How can we actively retrieve the aspirations and desires of students and involve them in making operations and the building more sustainable.
- How do we weigh investments and ensure transparent communication about decisions?
Keywords
- Sustainability visible, tangible and recognizable, for example with the help of the SDG icons
- Young people actively involved in the implementation of sustainability in business operations
- Inspiring learning environment
- Embedding the vision in all education support processes
- Housing and property, maintenance and management
See above the roadmap used by the PO Council and the VO Council to make school buildings more sustainable!
Inspiring projects
- PO, VO, MBO, HO
Every year Learning for Tomorrow organizes the Sustainable Teacher Election. Many teachers work at school every day to impart the knowledge and skills necessary...
