Acting Greener in Schools through Digital Narratives

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our times and humans are recognized as a major cause of Climate Change (UNESCO, 2009). In general teachers face various difficulties to apply innovativ...

Through the project ActGreenStory (AGS), capitalizing on past projects, and innovative education methodologies and training for green skills, with the use of digital storytelling and creativity, we empowered teachers towards achieving greener behaviors, shaping tomorrow’s climate action changemakers along with the engagement of families, hence following a holistic approach. Digital technologies, in all their facets, coupled with strong narratives, can engage students toward becoming tomorrow’s green stewards (Buchanan, Pressick-Kilborn, Maher 2018). Through this process, teachers, students, and their environment identify and act upon environmental problems through creative thinking as active citizens and not just as observers. Our objectives were to: i) design new-age educational material for students to use technology towards greener attitudes and actions, ii) empower teachers with new methods and tools to urge them to activate students’ inner green activist, iii) create accessible online material for further use and capitalization, iv)develop an interactive online platform for the connection of students from all over Europe to take common actions for climate change and become a living network.

Climate change is the greatest challenge of our times and humans are recognized as a major cause of Climate Change (UNESCO, 2009). In general teachers face various difficulties to apply innovative competence-based teaching in their settings as they are not trained in such practices while not feeling confident to teach for climate change due to the absence of clarity about the most effective teaching strategies. Weaknesses in Digital Competences for Educators (DCE) increase when it comes to situations or tools specifically related to online teaching. ActGreenStory (AGS) in response to these challenges, capitalizing on past projects, and innovative education methodologies and trainings for green skills, with the use of digital storytelling and creativity seeks to empower teachers towards achieving greener behaviors, shaping tomorrow’s climate action changemakers, with participatory methods, following a holistic approach. Digital technologies in all their facets coupled with strong narratives can engage students towards becoming tomorrow’s green stewards.

The AGS results are 1. AGS Curriculum is the learning and teaching material to support teachers and students in developing the necessary skills such as agency, creativity and design thinking, digital and environmental literacy, and problem-solving to help transform them into green changemakers. AGS project also empowered teachers with new skills for CCE and served as a good practice for designing and delivering green digital storytelling. 2. AGS Teachers´ Training Lab helped and supported the teachers on the smooth and effective implementation of the project´s curriculum, on how to introduce Digital Storytelling methodology in class for climate change actions. 3. AGS Multimedia Hub, where videos, interviews, and tutorials were produced in cooperation with animators with practical and useful tips for future applications, ready-to-use activities, and digital resources. 4. AGS Connecting Platform aspires to create a European-wide online community comprised of more than 1000 teachers, students, schools, policymakers, environmental NGOs and associations, parents and community stakeholders to support, contribute, and participate in educational activities that promoted campaigning for climate change.