SYNAPSES – Establishing Teacher Education Networks and Communities of Practice on Teaching for Sustainability Citizenship

In SYNAPSES, we present a vision of how pre-service and in-service programs on teaching for Sustainability Citizenship (SC) could be interrelated and enriched to develop a joint offer with a significant European dimension. SC has excellent potential for cultivating change agents 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 greening schoolyards. Arguing for a paradigm shift in how we view education. The SYNAPSES Academy could demonstrate how our education systems can create new levels of awareness and work toward a sustainable future. Teachers' impact will rise with the standards for environmental education, sustainability and combating climate change.SYNAPSES will set up the Erasmus+ Teacher 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 levels) will help teachers to design the most effective and engaging lessons that use 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. More generally, teachers will change their thinking 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 to enable the Academy to become a forum for the exchange of knowledge. This information hub will support, develop and promote teaching for SC. A systematic accreditation mechanism will be designed in the framework of the project.