Improvement approaches - relevance - innovation

What should be improved?

In the CLEANSURE project, various requirements and development goals were identified that served as the basis for the project design. These objectives reflect the steps needed to promote and embed environmental education and sustainable behaviour in schools and the wider community in the long term. The key requirements and development goals include:

Improving environmental health in schools: It became clear that the daily environment in schools needs to be made more resilient to environmental risks. Climate change and increasing environmental problems pose a challenge to the learning environment, which requires a stronger focus on environmental health and ecological education.

Strengthening environmental competences and knowledge transfer: Both teachers and students often need deeper knowledge in the field of environmental and climate education. A key objective is to strengthen competences that promote understanding of environmental issues and sustainable action, including the impact of individual and collective behaviour on the environment.

Promoting behavioural change and sustainable consumption habits: It was identified that an awareness of environmentally friendly consumption habits needs to be promoted within the school community. In order to pave the way to a more sustainable future, it is necessary to initiate a change in behaviour that supports resource-conserving and responsible decisions in everyday life.

Development of inclusive and accessible teaching materials: Existing educational materials are often not barrier-free or difficult to access, which makes it difficult for all pupils to actively participate in environmental education programmes. The creation of multilingual and inclusive materials that take into account different linguistic and social backgrounds was therefore defined as a key requirement.

Introduction of modern, digital teaching methods: The need to enrich environmental education with digital and interactive methods was also identified as an important development goal. Innovative and participatory teaching methods should motivate pupils and teachers to engage more intensively with environmental issues and utilise the digital transformation in education.

Recognising and promoting sustainable practices in schools: Schools that actively promote sustainability need recognition and incentives to remain committed in the long term. A visible system for recognising good practice is therefore necessary to motivate schools and highlight their commitment to sustainable education.

 

Promoting European cooperation and knowledge exchange: Another goal was to establish a network that enables European schools to exchange ideas and learn from each other. International co-operation should not only promote environmental education, but also strengthen intercultural competence and awareness of common European values.

These development goals and requirements were identified through surveys, basic analyses and discussions with teachers, pupils and families and formed the basis for further project measures.

 

Relevance of the project

The CLEANSURE project aimed to sensitise the school community to environmental health and climate protection through innovative and sustainable educational approaches. The project relevance was based on the need to promote a more resilient and environmentally conscious society by educating students, teachers and families on environmental awareness, sustainable practices and health. The innovative nature of the project was to place sustainability at the centre of the educational process and integrate ecological measures into everyday school life.

The "School Environmental Health" programmes were designed to raise awareness of environmental issues among the communities in the partner schools and to promote green skills and key competences (such as digital and multilingual skills). Another key objective was the development of a "School Good Practice Guide" and an "Environmental Quality Seal" for schools, which should act as a quality mark for sustainable schools and the exchange at European level enabled the project participants to learn from each other and develop common educational standards for environmental health that go far beyond the national level and enrich pedagogical practice.

 

New innovative approach

The CLEANSURE project is particularly innovative compared to previous initiatives undertaken by the participating institutions. While previous programmes were often limited to individual schools or specific aspects of education, CLEANSURE takes a comprehensive, multilateral approach that involves the entire school community - including teachers, pupils and their families.

The development of the **Environmental Quality Seal** establishes a quality assessment for sustainable school practices for the first time, which incentivises schools to continuously implement environmentally friendly measures. This represents a significant expansion of previous approaches, which were generally focussed on individual measures.

CLEANSURE is also introducing for the first time a multilingual platform with a read-aloud function that enables access to environmental education regardless of the language barrier. This innovative solution goes far beyond previous offerings by providing a comprehensive, digital platform that provides both learning materials and guides in multiple languages, increasing its reach at a European level.

As part of the project, the partners were able to learn from each other through transnational cooperation and job shadowing activities and jointly establish new standards in environmental education. This co-operation sets CLEANSURE apart from previous national or regional initiatives and offers an innovative model for intercultural educational work in the field of sustainability and environmental protection.

Overall, CLEANSURE surpasses the previous approaches of the participating institutions through the integration of modern technologies, the creation of new quality standards and transnational exchange - and thus sets new standards for future projects in the field of environmental education and sustainability.