Author: Panagiota Argyri

The rapidly evolving modern society makes the role of the school crucial to prepare young people for the transition to the labor market, and above all to equip them with the knowledge, attitudes and skills to play an active role as future citizens in actions and decisions that will have a positive impact. Teachers can cultivate students’ curiosity and provide them with the tools and resources to ask, understand, participate and make the importance of sustainability known. This understanding strengthens individual and collective action in the local, national and international level.

Students research and decide for the sustainable society of the future as global citizens of the modern world (CITI.GEN Z+)

The first word citi.gen is a combination of the world citizen and generation, Z is the name of the current generation and + refers to all the future generations. We chose this name because it fully expresses our cause: Help the members of the new generations to become the global citizens of tomorrow.

Students of A3 class of Evangeliki Model School of Smyrna in Athens, Greece with supervisor the Mathematician teacher (M.Ed, M.Sc) Argyri Panagiota, participated in Open Schools for Open Societies European project of Scientix repository. In this project, which started on 20 February (following the inspiration of Scientix Webinar: Integrating Sustainable Development Goals in Science Classroom) and completed on 1 April, students combine and select the sustainable development goals in order to suggest actions plans for the future communities.

Air pollution, scarcity and purity of water, poverty, animal exploitation, the use of plastics, obesity are key issues associated with a multitude of actions and require a revision of many daily habits to achieve the 17 sustainable development goals. 

Methodology of students’ activities :

-Study, record and analyze real world data that dealing with global issues problems.

-Research in the local community to find solutions to these problems through questionnaires.

-Interviews to experts and collaborate with stakeholders in order to formulate a plan for integrating and achieving the sustainable development goals of the  global and local community.

-Make decisions for the sustainable society of the future.

-Students are initially required to search for real scientific data on global problems, but also to interpret statistics and charts. On the basis of these, they raise questions and problems that they communicate to the learning community for resolution. They record the impact of these issues and as researchers collect data through questionnaires and interviews about the attitudes and behaviors of their local community members.

-With the cooperation and support of experts in the workplace, they prepare voluntary actions and propose solutions aimed at achieving the goals of sustainable development.

Results

• Prepare students to deal with complex real-world problems.
• Development students’ ability to use scientific methods.
• Preparing students to critically evaluate the validity of the data or evidence and their subsequent interpretations or conclusions.
• Teach quantitative skills, technical methods and scientific concepts.
• Increase verbal, written and graphic communication skills.
• Educate students on the values ​​and ethics of working with data.
• Motivate learning through students’ interest in a particular problem or in particular.
• Working with data provides students with an excellent environment for interaction with head and opportunities. Research on science education suggests that activities are more effective when designed for student interaction.
• Increase students’ interest in science, its role, how it affects daily life, and, secondly, to stimulate teachers’ motivation in innovative teaching methods to enrich and enhance curriculum by applying scientific knowledge to real problems that will prepare students for future roles and decision-making as members of the social community.
• Promote the link between education and workplaces through education for sustainable development.
• In order to address the problems of the 21st century and find solutions to address them locally and globally, trainees must be equipped with relevant skills, knowledge, behaviors and values. It is critical for them to understand themselves and their relationships with others as well as to realize their individual and collective impact on the world around them.
• Empowering students to learn how to play an active role in their local community, in shaping a more equitable and sustainable world at large, in balancing the demands of the environment, society and the economy.

STEM teachers have the responsibility to empower the students to develop personal and social responsibility, by balancing the demands of the environment, society and the economy, is realized through collaboration and communication activities between student groups, with problem solving, creativity, innovation and digital literacy as one of the key skills of the 21st century in cultivating critical thinking.

Scientix observatory provides the explanations and the arguments of key aspects relating to sustainability of STEM teaching practices and give motivations to promote the school’s collaboration and communication channels with the local community and workplaces to address issues.