GENGREEN EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS Programme Title: Going Green in Sport Toolkit
Target Group: school staff (teachers and principals), school activists and community leaders.
Organisation: BG BE Active and partnering organisations
Duration: 5-60 minutes
Summary The toolkit aims to inspire organising active games (involving physical activity) to raise awareness of key climate change issues, such as waste reduction and sustainable waste management. It grounds green education principles by offering practical and easy-to-implement ideas that keep students physically active while learning about a relevant topic, as they will be the generation living in the world of tomorrow.
Description This toolkit is structured firstly to introduce the concept of green education and its key components. Then, it presents the different methods used in green education ( formal and non-formal). In addition, it links the concept of green education with physical activity and highlights how sport can be effectively used to teach sustainability to students. Finally, it introduces several active games that can be organised by teachers in schools with minimal equipment to teach children about waste reduction and management. Each game includes the required materials, level of difficulty, duration, and a short description of the activity.
Objectives To help make schools more sustainable through three main domains of action: 1.By providing ideas on how to use existing equipment in a greener way, by thinking outside the box. 2.By raising awareness of climate change challenges practically through physical activity rather than solely theoretical content taught in classrooms. 3.By empowering children to take part in the planning and organising processes of activities, enabling them to adopt an active role in environmental issues.
Challenges There is a need to adapt the games in some schools where the playground is relatively small and when it is not possible to go to a bigger space outside of school (e.g, municipal sport facilities) because of time constraints. There is a need to train teachers on how to teach children about sustainable issues (which is relatively new in the field of education).
Impact Effective transfer of knowledge and best practices related to waste reduction and improved waste management in school sports activities. Reduced waste due to successful awareness-raising among pupils and students. Increased visibility of educational practices promoting sustainability, as they can be implemented in almost any school setting. Promoting non-formal education methods that are more inclined to implement teaching content that allows children to express their opinions and participate in organising educational activities.