Learning the Concept of Sustainability: Interdisciplinary Activities @Primary Education

The National College “Johannes Honterus” is not among the educational institutions that include in its curriculum concepts such as sustainability, healthy nutrition, nature conservation. Also, few chapters included in the curriculum can be considered interdisciplinary.  Hence, the teachers of our educational institution, which educates students between the ages of 6 and 18, try to remedy these deficiencies through various activities included both within the course hours and through extracurricular activities.

At the same time, we try to offer our students a learning system, already practiced in Europe, but too little in Romania, namely learning by practical application.

The goal is that, at the end of the school, the students will be left not only with theoretical concepts, without the connection between them, which does not help them much further, but with practical ideas. Students must understand that fundamental ideas do not belong to a single field, but each discipline can analyze the same phenomenon from different perspectives. In the end, all these analyses form a whole that completely defines the respective phenomenon.

Our students participated in several activities on sustainability, healthy nutrition, nature conservation. A first activity was carried out during the technology classes and was completed with a competition under the aegis of EU-CONEXUS and had the title Green School Presentation. 9^th grade students participated in this project. They built a Green School with the help of Minecraft World a were ranked among the 5 best projects in Romania.

In math and statistics classes, 10^th grade students wrote a journal for a week with everyone’s eating habits and the resulting waste. The results were analyzed through different statistics and then disseminated within our school.

In the chemistry laboratory classes, a few hours were dedicated to traditional food from our country. Thus, the fats, sugars and food additives contained in them were chemically analyzed. The results were the product of an Erasmus+ Project.

Another Erasmus+ project had as its theme the preservation of the environment and especially forests.

The feedback received from the students who participated in these activities was very good, which is why I want to present these activities to others through the poster.