STEAM education for plastic-free primary schools
News relating to STEAM, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Methodologies, Practices, School Initiatives, etc.
Break Free From Plastic has been working on solutions to stop plastic pollution for good, and young people are an important part of reaching this vision!
Youth and education spaces have been driving forces for action and change in the climate, human rights, and pro-democracy movements. Young people need the support, more than ever, to be able to realize this vision of a plastic-free society starting with the spaces where they grow, learn, and flourish—schools!
Are you looking for some inspiration on what you can do at school to minimise plastic?
Check how a group of primary school children from Bristol (UK) have persuaded their headmaster to install refill machines instead of milk cartons to help the environment. They save around 150 cartons per day, which adds up to about 28,000 a year!
This video, walks you through an easy way to help your school reduce waste: waste stations!! This strategy guides students in sorting different types of lunchroom waste, including landfill trash, recyclable materials, organic waste, and more. Waste stations help reduce debris by maximizing recycling and composting, while also helping students understand the importance of disposing of their waste responsibly.
Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. The challenge is designed to support you, your community, or your school, in reducing single use plastics throughout the month of July.
There are resources and ideas online to help you get involved, plus take the quiz to be part of their research. Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics?
As the next generation will lead the global transition to a circular economy, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation has created a set of resources to engage primary and secondary level children with circular economy — inspiring them to redesign our ‘take, make, waste’ system to make things better for people and the planet.
The resources (videos, reading materials, lesson plans, and interactive projects) on topics including climate change, fashion, food, plastics, and cities, can be used at home or school.
The paper “Creative Learning in STEM: towards the design of an approach between theory and reflective practice” suggests that bodily engagement, emotions, self-expression and open-ended, creative exploration, should have a legitimate place in the science classroom. It proposes to move beyond the de-contextualised use of technology in learning towards a learning flow that fosters engagement, a way to develop children’s thinking, their voice and identity, making them feel able to share and contribute actively.
What is transformative Science? How is it produced and disseminated?
The condense guide ‘Co-designing the Science We Need for the Ocean We Want’, inspired by an international webinar series, offers a solid staring point on the: what, why and how to co-design salient, credible and legitimate ocean knowledge solutions. The recommendations are applicable in other science co-designing frameworks.
Plastic Free July® is a global movement that helps millions of people be part of the solution to plastic pollution – so we can have cleaner streets, oceans, and beautiful communities. Find many stories and good practices from around the world in their rich inspiring website.
Will you be part of Plastic Free July by choosing to refuse single-use plastics?
The “Plastic Pirates go Europe” is a citizen science project to research litter pollution in rivers in 3 European countries: Germany Slovenia and Portugal. Throughout these countries, young people are integrated into the scientific research process by collecting data on litter pollution at rivers. The data is then analysed by scientists and published in scientific journals.
UNESCO is uniting schools around the world to take action against waste.
Trash Hack: Action learning for sustainable development is a guide for teachers to engage their students to trash hack their classrooms, schools, communities and homes.