Shauna Lyons, a Post Primary teacher at Donabate Community College Home - Donabate Community College joined the cohort of educators at SYNAPSES Summer Course in Greece, in 2025, as part of the International Erasmus+ School Heads and Teacher Training Academy on Teaching for Sustainability Citizenship. Drawing on this experience Shauna Lyons implemented a whole-school Swap Shop in her own school using the key approach of Challenge Based Learning (CBL) as introduced to participants at the summer course. Addressing the real-world challenge of ‘Fast Fashion’, this project involved a number of participants including Shauna as facilitator and mentor, students as engaged…

Fifty school leaders walked into a room at Kodolányi University in Budapest with very different stories. Some came from countries with national sustainability programmes, dedicated funding, and child-led school committees. Others came from systems where each region - sometimes each school - figures it out alone. What you do with the given situation, is what defines you as a leader. The workshop was held as part of the ESHA General Assembly, as SYNAPSES moves towards its close. It opened with a participant from one of the project's summer schools sharing what she had taken back to her school, and then…

One of the persistent challenges in sustainability education is knowing where students actually stand before a lesson begins. Not just what they know, but what they believe, how they feel about an issue, and what misconceptions might be shaping their thinking. New research co-funded by SYNAPSES, recently published in Frontiers in Education, offers a practical response to that challenge. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Bayreuth, used microplastics as its focus topic. Students were invited to respond to open questions about what microplastics are, where they come from, and how dangerous they are. An AI tool then…

One of Portugal's achievements in SYNAPSES was a large-scale, accredited professional development programme. Over four months, teachers and school heads from cohorts across the country embarked on a deep learning journey combining face-to-face sessions, online learning, and independent work. Following the SYNAPSES Journey framework and drawing on its resources, teachers didn't just learn, they created. Alongside their students, they designed and implemented real school projects tackling local challenges: reducing food waste, restoring biodiversity, monitoring light pollution, mapping urban rivers, running clothing swap shops, and developing apps about the SDGs. Schools across Portuguese educators are now integrating sustainability and citizenship into…

Nestled in the Czech countryside, the environmental education centre Kaprálův Mlýn became the setting for an immersive two-day seminar that gave Environmental Studies and Pedagogy students from Masaryk University's Faculty of Social Studies and Faculty of Arts a rare chance to step outside the lecture hall and into hands-on learning. Rather than simply studying environmental education in theory, students got to experience the centre's approach from the inside, seeing firsthand how it runs and how its programmes help pupils build the competencies needed for real, individual action on environmental issues. The workshop was packed with activity. Students dove into Fish…

As part of SYNAPSES, ECBA organised the webinar series “Global Goals, Local Impact – Sustainably Ever After”, welcoming 547 participants from across Europe in 11 sessions. The series connected teachers with scientific professionals working on real-world sustainability challenges and opened many inspiring conversations about how global issues can become meaningful in education. We really appreciated the lively discussions during the sessions and were encouraged by the positive feedback we received from participants on the value of this format. At the same time, the experience helped us see more clearly what teachers need next: not only inspiring examples, but also practical,…

Across Irish schools, Sustainability Citizenship is becoming reality for children and young people. Through the SYNAPSES Academies programme, schools are transforming outdoor spaces into living laboratories for Biology, SESE, Environmental Science, Climate Action, and Education for Sustainable Development. Using raised beds, polytunnels, sustainable planting methods, and practical environmental inquiry, students are learning how ecosystems function, how food is grown, and why responsible environmental stewardship matters. Technology and observation tools are being integrated into learning, enabling pupils to record growth, monitor sustainability practices, and connect classroom learning with real-world environmental action. This work strongly reflects the core vision of SYNAPSES Academies…

Over 27-31 October 2025, the 4th grade of Ellinogermaniki Agogi ran five hands-on experiments on urban soils: the Heat Spy Mission (comparing how schoolyard surfaces retain heat), Biodiversity in the Pavement Cracks (documenting micro-ecosystems with magnifying glasses), the Soil-to-Table Walk (tracing an apple's journey from Pelion to the school canteen), the Compost Challenge (building bottle-composters), and the Rainwater Experiment. Around 150 fourth-grade pupils across six classrooms took part, supported by 10 teachers using FAO Land and Water resources and project summer-school materials. Pupils were visibly surprised to find a thriving ecosystem of plants, worms and ants in their own schoolyard…