TINKERING for sustainability at school

The motivation for this Erasmus + project was to meet the need of educators in schools and other educational settings to support learners (aged 8-12) towards cultivating sustainable behaviors. Various international organisations have emphasized the need for meaningful and transformative education for sustainability. Irina Bokova, former Director‐General of UNESCO, has stated that: “Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is based on the fundamental interdependence of environment, economy, society and cultural diversity, which together form the key to a better and more just world in the 21st century” (UNESCO, n.d.) The project was motivated by a desire to meet this need in a manner that would be both effective from learning outcomes as well as engaging for young people and educators. In the project, teachers and school staff and educators in non-formal settings were invited to reflect with their learners on how to improve the adoption of sustainable behaviors at school and at home in order to become agents of change for sustainable living, motivated through the Tinkering approach.

Objectives
The overall objective of the project was to further meaningful sustainability education in the partner countries and across Europe. To this end, the project aimed to develop tinkering as an approach in sustainability education and give it a firm foundation within educational practices in the respective countries and promote it by sharing examples of good practice.The project addresses the priority of Environment and fight against climate change through engaging educators and learners directly with various issues of environmental and climate concern and by using tinkering to (a) make the challenges more tangible - translating overarching and global problems into issues of everyday life - and (b) address those problems in a practical way through work that is both meaningful and engaging for the individuals involved, their organisations as a whole and spreading it to the wider community.
Using tinkering as a method in education is not only about learning specific skills, but also about developing a deep understanding of a method that goes against many entrenched practices in schools. It is about being at ease with uncertainty and exploring new possibilities.

Implementation
The main activity in the project was the implementation of tinkering in various educational settings in each participating countries. The implementation was guided by the Tinkering Toolkit which helped focus the work on sustainability with STEAM relevance.
The project partners collectively tested 11 tinkering activities and each partner then tested further two or more activities in its national country to demonstrate, effectiveness, usability and interest in their adoption by a large audience.’
Implementation of the activities started early with testing the activities during their development. All activities were tested at lea

Three kinds of outputs were produced to support teachers and educators to develop and apply tinkering to sustainability issues in their
classrooms. The concrete output, the tinkering toolkit, consists of:
1. Methodology that serves as a guide for anyone who wants to start developing Tinkering activities on sustainability. It consists of a brief description of the Tinkering methodology, ideas how to infuse Tinkering with sustainability education and how one can get started on developing their own Tinkering activities.
2. Eleven comprehensive activity plans for tinkering activities aimed at students from upper primary and lower secondary school level.
3. Facilitator’s Guide that provides additional resources for the eleven activity plans. The document includes general information and extra tips for the facilitators, for example: additional tips on guiding the activities, a glossary and suggestions for materials.
Other results of the project are national reports (4 in total) that map the fields of potential use, methods and guidelines developed into the Tinkering Toolkit. All the published material is available in five languages on the projects webpage which also includes additional resources https://tinkeringschool.eu/