When around 600 Zehlendorf primary school pupils and their teachers, parents and siblings set off on a parade through the neighbourhood at midday on 4 July, it's all about sustainability. Together they will celebrate the "FREI DAY festival". FREI DAY is a learning format for sustainability education in which over 200 schools across Germany are involved. One of them is Schweizerhof Primary School in Berlin-Zehlendorf, which introduced FREI DAY in 2020. The teachers are supported by the project "Social-ecological education for sustainable development in primary school science lessons" at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin (HU). Prof Dr Bernd Overwien and Jurik Stiller from the Department of Sachunterricht und seine Didaktik at the HU are taking part in the festival with a team: "In the project, we are developing formats for political sustainability education. Students come to schools or other places of learning and bring ideas for lesson design with them. This creates educational opportunities in which children can engage with actors and structures in the context of sustainability," they explain.
Promoting sustainability and political education
The project on education for sustainable development is a collaboration between the Department of Didactics of Political Education at the University of Kassel and the Department of Sachunterricht und seine Didaktik at the Department of Education Studies at the HU. Together with students, teachers and extracurricular partners, the research team develops educational units for primary schools and extracurricular learning centres. The aim is to integrate sustainability education in the context of biodiversity, climate protection and mobility into teaching practice. This also involves participation, political education and emancipation: visits to extracurricular learning centres are an integral part of the concept. In Berlin-Brandenburg, these learning centres include the Sp?th Arboretum at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin, the Verkehrsclub Deutschland e.V. (VCD) in Berlin and the Weather Museum in Lindenberg. "The aim is to enable pupils to understand sustainability as an issue for society as a whole and to deal with global crises and the search for solutions, as well as to reflect on which structures are currently still standing in the way of such solutions," says Stiller.
As part of the project, several regional teams have been formed, teaching formats have been developed and 10 good-practice educational units have been designed, which will be made available to primary schools and other interested educational institutions. The project runs from July 2024 to June 2026 and is funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU).
Further information on the project
Contact
Jurik Stiller
Department of Education Studies at Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin
Department of Sachunterricht und seine Didaktik
E-mail: jurik.stiller? Please insert an @ at this point ?hu-berlin? Please insert a period at this pointde