Backatorpsskolan have used filmed lectures, teachers' plans, inspirations movies etc from this resource bank in a number of different ways and levels, according to the needs of the organisation. We encourage all schools that want to develop their way of teaching to do the same. Feel free to use all materials on this webbsite to inspire your teaching and learning about sustainability and resilience.
At Backatorpsskolan we have for example, let all pedagogical staff reflected on the way we work in our school during one day in autum 2021. After that we talked about how we need to change our teaching and learning for sustainable development.
We red and reflected on a text from the National Agency for Education. Skolverkets lärmodul, Didaktiska utmaningar och perspektiv på hållbar utveckling (PDF - in Swedish) by Iann Lundegård, Anders Urbas, Claes Malmberg och Helen Hasslöf
Together, we mwatched the filmed lecture with Pella Thiel, who talked on pain and participation, transformation and resilience in a living world.
Pella hit us all with facts and feelings and engaged us in different exercises where we had to face our own feelings, worries and thoughts about the state of the world today.
On pain and participation, transformation and resilience in a living world by Pella Thiel, Omställningsnätverket.
The school development team gave a summary of the text, Eco-Anxiety and Environmental Education by Panu Pihkala.
The work so far arouse a lot of thoughts about what kind of school we really want.
"What is the school supposed to do/teach?" (The same things expected of today's leaders at all levels)
This was the starting point for a comprehensive change in working methods at the entire school towards thematic work. We decided to develop different forms of cooperation in the teams and to offer an education that promotes entrepreneurship. The goal is for our students to develop the abilities that equip them to be creative and collaborate with other people both nationally and internationally. Co-planning and implementing different themes based on the curriculum's goals develops the teaching and helps us reach this goal.
During the spring 2022 the teachers at Backatorpsskolan have, based on the national curriculum, discussed and reflected on different values, central competences and social skills, and how these are visualised and assessed in their teaching.
In April 2022 Ann-Catherine Henriksson, representing the project part Åbo Akademi university, attended (online) one of the school afternoon conferenses. During this afternoon we discussed formative assessment overall and assessment of knowledge versus assessment of skills, attitudes, values, feelings. Based on the work during the spring the teachers have planned interdisciplinary learning themes for grades 1-2, 3 4 and 5-6. The main topics for the themes are "Living together" and "Democracy".
In the autumn 2022, all pedagogical staff read and reflect on GreenComp - The European sustainability competence framework. We talked about the sustainability competences and again: What is the school supposed to do/teach?
GreenComp consists of12 competences organised into four areas:
1. Embodying sustainability values
2. Embracing complexity in sustainability
3. Envisioning sustainable futures
4. Acting for sustainability
According to the Swedish National Agency for Education's writings on teaching for sustainable development and the Europeanframework for sustainability competences, GreenComp, we need to offer students open and authentic encounters with nature, remind them of what they care for and challenge them to care, responsibility, cooperation and political action. They advocate an education that gives students the tools to critically examine old structures but also the opportunity to create new ones. Teaching needs to give students confidence in science and research while inviting them to democratic conversations about the consequences.
We believe it is possible to help our students acquire knowledge that all citizens of society need, while at the same time they get to help create new stories about how the world should be shaped in the future.
