In SYNAPSES, we present a vision on how pre-service and in-service programs on teaching for Sustainability Citizenship (SC) could be interrelated and enriched to develop a joint offer with significant European dimension. SC has great potential for cultivating agents of change who not only envision, but also enact solutions to climate change. Teaching for SC can stimulate and lead to an action-including decreasing consumption and demand, developing sustainable food and energy sources, exploring nature-based solutions for the current challenges, using school buildings as teaching tools, and the greening of schoolyards. Arguing for a paradigm shift in the way we view education, the SYNAPSES Academy could demonstrate how our education systems can create new levels of awareness and work towards a sustainable future.

SYNAPSES will set-up the Erasmus+ School Heads and Teachers Training Academy on Teaching for SC to ensure and safeguard the long-term impact of the proposed activities. A series of training activities (at local, regional, national and international level) will be organised to help teachers to design the most effective and engaging lessons that will make use of innovative forms of instruction (inquiry-based, project-based, game-based) and tools (e.g., access to rich scientific data archives, virtual and remote experimentations, animations) in their classrooms, and more generally think differently about their students’ learning of and about the environment, science and technology. This will be expanded by offering concurrently opportunities for mobilities, such as study visits, job shadowing opportunities, meetings, conferences, and competitions with the goal to enable the Academy to become a forum for exchange of knowledge, an information hub which will support, develop and promote teaching for SC. A systematic accreditation mechanism will be designed in the framework of the project.

SYNAPSES CONCEPT

The operation of the SYNAPSES Academy is grounded on the concept of sustainability citizenship. Climate change-relevant sustainability citizenship skills include the ability to recognise the environmental, social and economic dimensions of climate change, the ability to connect local actions and initiatives to global processes, and the capacity to move from analysis to systematic action on climate change. In the framework of the project we will present: a) the concept of Sustainability Citizenship that is rooted to long term research in the field, b) the key drivers of change that could catalyse its integration to the national training curricula and educational systems and finally c) the proposed framework for the implementation that is based on a hybrid approach that builds on the strengths of formal and informal education.