Sustainable Environment a key to sustainable life

In the project «Sustainable environment_a key to sustainable life» Afyonkarahisar Süleyman Demirel Fen Lisesi is the applicant organization and Ergene District Directorate of National Education is the national partner and it will define three high schools in its region as pilot schools. With a needs survey, we have determined the needs of our schools and we have decided on the objectives of the project according to these needs.

The concrete objectives of the Project are:

• increase public awareness about environmental issues, starting at school
• explore possible solutions to current environmental issues
• to lay the foundations for a fully informed and active participation of individuals in the protection of the environment and the prudent and rational use of natural resources
• to encourage pupils to examine and interpret the environment from a variety of perspectives-physical, geographical, biological, sociological, economic, political, technological, historical, esthetic, and ethical.
• to arouse pupil’s awareness and curiosity about the permaculture lifestyle, and
• to encourage active participation in resolving environmental problems.

In order to reach these objectives, we will plan and implement various activities such as LTT activity for teachers on EE (Environmental Education and Permaculture Methodology in Education), exploration of the water and soil ecosystems in the homeland, creating research teams, and trying to find solutions to the current environmental problems to maintain water and soil ecosystems and students exchanges in partner schools to work on the final products (Project booklet, digital games, and Project documentary film)

Project objectives are totally related to environment and sustainability in the environment and with the help of final products which we will manage, we will improve the digital skills and competencies of pupils by implementing eTwinning projects about environment and lead them to gain some soft skills such as creative thinking, situational awareness, problem-solving, self-motivation, and responsibility.

By implementing that project we want to;

• to lead our students who are born and raised in the information society, to see the ways to add meaning to what they
  know.
• to help them transform information into behavior, and
• to encourage them to get 21st-century skills, have critical and creative thinking skills, product and result-oriented work,
  and use digital tools, by supporting the online and offline tools that we will use in our education and training processes on
  all branches.

When we look at our world today, human damage to nature is obvious. As a result of global warming, in Australia, which lasted for more than 6 months in 2019, and the forest fires that lasted during the summer of 2021 all around the world, the temperature rose to 49 degrees, and more than 480 million animals were destroyed.

According to the UN Climate Report, global warming will increase by 1.8 to 4 degrees by 2100, water shortages will begin, 30 percent of the planet’s living species will be threatened with extinction, the world’s food stocks will run out and migration will begin. In that and some other similar reports, it is stated that the biggest responsible of environmental problems is “HUMAN”. Unfortunately, since our education system is based on teaching abstract concepts in closed spaces, nature is increasingly becoming a distant and abstract concept for new generations. 

In order to reverse this situation, and based on the results of the environmental awareness survey we have had applied at our school, we have decided to prepare such a project. By implementing that project; we aim to achieve to show our students, who are born and raised in the information society, the ways to add meaning to what they know, to help them transform information into behaviour, and to educate young people who adopt 21st-century skills, have critical and creative thinking skills, product and result-oriented work and use digital tools, by supporting the online and offline tools that we will use on our education and training processes on all branches. 

Moreover, we also aim to support the upbringing of the generations who can transform what they learn into behaviour, take social and environmental responsibilities, and adopt lifelong learning as a principle, and ultimately to educate young people who know their responsibilities towards society and the environment they live in, especially in the sense of the future of our world, who have understood the importance of sustainable environmental development and realized what they can do about it.

At the end of the project, all the teachers and students at the partner schools and the local community as well;

• get an awareness about the environmental issues, the causes, results, and the solutions,
• develop and implement action plans and take environmental responsibility,
• establish eco-schools and eco-societies culture at local, national, and international levels.
• learn and apply the principles of permaculture living style for a sustainable environment

As the last point, that project will serve the aim of modernization and innovation in education and also encourage social and environmental responsibility of educational institutions. Considering the objectives and the concrete results of the project and its possible added value, the project deserves to be funded.

Main project activities will be the following:

• Kick off meeting and Final project meeting, both in Turkey.
• 2 training activities, one in Spain for teachers of the schools and one in Italy for students.
• Dissemination plan.

The LTT activity is the first step of the way how to become a permaculture teacher. During the activity, the participant teachers gain awareness about the ethics, principles, and strategies of permaculture and they understand how to prepare lesson plans on the basis of permaculture. In other words, all participant teachers have a chance to:

• Change the way they think about education
• Move towards a permaculture teaching career
• Empower themselves and others with life-changing skills
• Learn to pass on knowledge of permaculture theory and practice in ways that creates real change in their students and activates entire communities
• Make connections with an international community of permaculture teachers
• Think and act the same way as nature does, providing practical solutions to the global crises we are currently facing
• Get more connected with nature and understand how it works?
• Learn what way they can save energy on everything they do inside and outside the classroom?
• Get an idea about how they can recover and redesign areas or objects in a way that they become more ecological and nature friendly.

In short, this LTT activity’s results are totally related to the ways how the teachers become permaculture teachers and how they lead their students to become eco-friendly citizens.

This is a Group Mobility of School Pupils to be hosted by our Italian partner. 

In that mobility, 12 pupils and 3 teachers from the partner schools, and 3 representatives from Spanish and Italian partners will participate. The main target group of that activity is the pupils and their peers at the partner schools. For the follow-up activities which are planned to be done during at least 2 years after the project duration, the pupils who will attend the mobility will be chosen among the 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

4 teams of students and teachers will:

• Run Environmental School TV: each month the students will find a topic, write the script, find the images, record interviews and broadcast the news on a School TV channel for the rest of School students. 
• Design a permaculture garden in the school garden.
• Develop a digital game which is called “a better life is possible” facilitating the permaculture and sustainable lifestyle.
• Permaculture School e-Magazine” every 3 months and publish it on social media accounts, school, and project websites to reach a wider public.