Teaching and Fostering an Active Environmental Awareness Design, Validation and Planning for Action-Oriented Environmental Education

Abstract

In recent years, there have been frequent scientific reports focusing on high carbon dioxide emissions. Many people feel concerned about efforts not happening quickly enough to reduce the negative impact on the climate. The responsibility for reversing this trend rests primarily on adults, but hope is now directed more and more toward the younger generation. The present project, which is a collaboration between design and education, lays the foundation for an educational endeavor based on an idea of environmental citizenship. By creating environmental citizen tokens for children and youths, this project aims to change learned living patterns and encourage a new generation to work toward a sustainable climate. There is also good possibility that the young people’s involvement and striving for a better environment will transfer to adults. This has become clear in the global movement started by the environmental activist, Greta Thunberg. This article describes the work of designing and preparing the implementation of a learning project, with its basis in knowledge about environmental impact and personal responsibility. The methods underlying the project are gamification and digital activities, allied with a proven system for making a progression of skills visible. The project has resulted in a finished design and an implementation plan, which have been validated through interviews with teacher educators, principals, teachers, student-teachers, parents and pupils, and which after this validation will be tested at ten specially selected Swedish compulsory schools.