Tink@school

November 2022 - October 2024

The 24 month long project proposes the use of tinkering as an approach that can be merged with Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). It will develop educational activities around sustainability and climate topics to be applied at late primary and early secondary level (students aged 8-12 years).

The project topics will revolve around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Climate Change as these are experienced in the everyday realities in European schools, and through applying the STEAM-based, learner-centered and process oriented tinkering methodology. Tinkering relies heavily on collaborative problem solving, where learners not only gain specific knowledge (about various sustainability and climate challenges) but also develop their critical thinking, collaboration and communicative skills. The method also trains students in dealing with uncertainty, as many of the issues that will be tackled don’t have a unique or straightforward solution.

Aim

The aim is to help teachers use the Tinkering methodology in primary and primary and secondary education in the context of sustainability. Tinkering is an innovative pedagogy pioneered by the Exploratorium of San Francisco. It supports the construction of knowledge within the context of building personally meaningful artefacts and it is characterized by a playful, experimental style of engagement in which learners are continually reassessing their goals, exploring new learning paths and following their own goal. This methodology will be used to develop 10 activities (2/Partner) within the subject of sustainability. All activities will be tested with the target group and results are used to revise and fine-tune the activities and the final version of the Toolkit.

Project partners

University of Iceland - School of Education - Iceland

CRES, centre for Research and European studies - Italy

Bartolomeo Cultural Association - Italy

NEMO Science Museum - Netherlands

MEdIES, Mediterranean Education Initiative on Environment and Sustainability - Greece.

Visit the projects website for more information