Digital Stories to Promote Environmental Sustainability Education in Schools

When the PESES project first started, we had already seen the negative impact of human activities on the environment, which were evidently highlighted during the 2020 pandemic. The positive side effect of reduced human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted our interconnectedness with nature. As countries are fully back to 'normal' now, it is a really important time to reconsider global environmental concerns. Education is a key avenue for fostering environmental sustainability. Our project, PESEs, aimed to raise awareness of critical environmental issues especially focused on students, who are the future of the world. The goal was to create a ripple effect, with partnering students spreading awareness to their family and friends, meaning the impact of our project will go way past the scope of direct participants. Our project exposed young minds to issues like climate change and involved them actively empowering them as essential contributors to the environment. Our project sought to emphasize their role as agents of positive change in improving the environment, therefore promoting a paradigm shift in the importance of helping the environment.

The primary goal that PESES aimed to achieve is to embed environmental sustainability into school curricula, empowering students as main catalysts for change and yielding direct positive impact on our environment. Our specific goal for the duration of the project was to establish a multinational community actively promoting environmental change, that will continue to exist once the project has ended. We aspired to seamlessly integrate a hidden curriculum into formal education, making sustainability a part of daily life at school. We created engaging, interactive methods within the school curriculum, motivating students to learn and assume responsibility for their actions. A key focus was bridging the gap between acquired knowledge and sustainable behaviors in the young students, nurturing a generation committed to environmental responsibility.

In the implementation of the PESEs project, two international training activities (LTTAs) were conducted to enhance social awareness of environmental sustainability in schools. Following the teacher workshops on Digital Storytelling, teachers from the partner countries had the knowledge and tools to create and lead their national piloting sessions that occurred later on in the project. These teachers were also key actors to continue the process of dissemination during the duration of the project and after the project’s lifetime. Our consortium played a guiding role, involving students and teachers to promote sustainable actions within their homes and communities. The ultimate objective was to transform these participants into catalysts for action and social change in climate action. Focusing on sustainability, the project targeted the enhancement of local environmental action through the promotion of school education. PESES developed and tested five modules inside a Learning Curriculum as well as a toolkit that further facilitated environmental consciousness promotion. All the outcomes and results that the project created was available in English as well as the partner languages (Spanish, Italian, Turkish and Polish) in the platform found in the link https://peses-project.eu. This platform, which will continue to be available past the lifetime of the project, ensures the sustained benefits for students, teachers and staff. It stands as a lasting resource, fostering ongoing learning and environmental awareness in educational communities in Europe and worldwide.

The PESEs project created many tangible outputs and impactful results through a comprehensive set of activities. We held two international training activities in Italy and Ireland, as well as each partner country held national piloting sessions to enhance social awareness of environmental sustainability in schools. Despite the absence of PR1, the project’s methodology was well establish with the help of research from all partner countries. In PR2 unveiled a training curriculum and sustainability stories, initiating teacher training on the DST methodology. The Training Curriculum for school Educators on Sustainability Development consists of five modules. Translated into partner languages (Spanish, Turkish, Polish and Italian) this curriculum laid the foundation for disseminating sustainable practices in diverse educational contexts. It created a simple way for Sustainability Education to be introduced into the classroom. PR3 consisted of a practical toolkit, featuring five themes with six tools each, with a total of 30 tools, empowered students to actively engage in sustainable practices. These tools, available in all partner languages, facilitated hands-on learning and practical application of environmental concepts, it provided guidelines and resources for independent DST sessions, ensuring organized and accessible materials for professional and students in Education. All the results, including the modules and toolkit, were centralized in a multilingual digital platform. This platform, that will be available for at least 5 years beyond the lifespan of the project, which ensures continued accessibility for students teachers and any environmentally conscious individual that wants to benefit from the project’s results long into the future. The project culminated in a Final Event held in Spain where over 100 participants were exposed to all the outputs of the PESES project. This provided a platform to showcase the achievements and share insights with participants. Additionally, five multiplier events were conducted in partner countries, each hosting at least 30 participants, including policymakers, students, teachers and government representatives. These events served to disseminate the project results and foster broader engagement with the project.