Building open schooling communities across Europe with sustainability projects
Education has the power to provoke real and profound changes in society, and shifts in learning methods have been debated to provide the skills and knowledge necessary for the current and next generation of students. For instance, a UNESCO report traces a new social contract for education that can prepare society for future challenges. Part of this includes a move towards more collaboration between schools and communities. Inspired by this approach, a consortium of 23 partners from 10 countries developed an open schooling method to advance science education for European students and citizens within an EU-funded project called MOST. By opening formal STEM education through partnerships between schools and their communities, the project also aims at encouraging people to pursue scientific careers – to ultimately increase the number of scientists in Europe. “Open schooling can help students and community members to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to tackle the major challenges of our time and make informed decisions,” argues Katja Maaß, MOST project coordinator. “Education is the key to social change, and by opening up schools, they can become a hub where society can learn from and with each other.”
Connecting schools and communities
MOST based its approach on school-community projects (SCPs) related to environmental issues. Through this method, students worked together with members of the community, such as families, academic and non-formal education partners, NGOs and businesses. “Current classroom practices mainly focus on separate subjects in closed school systems that do not involve the various perspectives on possible measures,” says Maaß. “Facing environmental challenges requires an understanding of interests of various stakeholders involved and the skills to bring them together and to co-create solutions.” In total, 672 SCPs were implemented, reaching 23 113 students, 2 443 teachers and 53 418 actors from the communities. The projects were focused on the topics of sustainability, waste and energy management. They resulted in exploring and even applying real solutions for problems, such as locally based recycling of plastics, reducing food waste in the school canteen, using solar energy to power cars and saving energy at school and at home. Besides quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results, several documents were produced to facilitate open schooling in Europe, including a manual for schools to plan and perform projects with the communities and pedagogical guidelines for setting up sustainable partnerships.
Open schooling networks
MOST contributed to two open schooling networks that remain available and will be further developed. The European Open Schooling Network (EOSnet) showcases school-community projects, promotes best practices and provides information and support tools for stakeholders. The OStogether network is an initiative of EU-funded projects that brings together more than 50 organisations to promote the open schooling approach both at public and policy levels. Recently, the network published a joint policy brief to disseminate common principles, recommendations and actions that contribute to the development of resources, methods, practices and policies for open schooling. To further expand open schooling, Maaß mentions that more work should be done at various levels. This includes providing pedagogical support for teachers, promoting new teaching and learning methods in education policy and legitimating open schooling initiatives with the allocation of resources.
Keywords
MOST, open schooling, STEM, science education, sustainability