Green Krzyżowa

Our Common World - Global Education for Children

Over the last few years, a collection of lesson plans for pre-school and early school age children has been developed within the framework of global education projects, including the project "Our Common World - Global Education for Children". These materials are the result of the full commitment and creativity of teachers who took part in the training conducted by trainers and methodologists of global education.

Global education encourages students to take care of environmental sustainability at local and global level. A number of developed lesson scenarios show how to teach respect for nature's resources and how to consolidate attitudes of commitment to sustainable development.

The scenarios can be downloaded from the website edukacjaglobalna.krzyzowa.org.pl. There is also a reading room, which is a list of inspiring books for children. They can be used to introduce global education to schools and kindergartens. It can also be a list of recommended 'home reading' for Parents and Children's Guardians, who want to talk to their children about global issues by themselves.

Reflections

The multilingual EduSkills+ platform is dedicated to different strategies for implementing global education. It also deals with their growing importance in the European and international context. Teachers will find here free materials, online and offline training and information to face up to current pedagogical challenges.

The online platform is the result of cooperation between eight partner organisations from six European countries supported financially by the European Commission:

• Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe (Poland),

• University of Naples (Italy), 

• Georg Eckert Institute (Germany), 

• Studio GAUS GmbH (Germany), 

• Südwind Association (Austria), 

• Austrian Center of Philosophy with Children (Austria), 

• Education@Internet (Slovakia), 

• Inter-kulturo d.o.o. (Slovenia)

The project is based on the assumption that intercultural integration in a globalised world requires strategies to reduce prejudices, challenge stereotypes, overcome cultural barriers and promote dialogue. Among these strategies, education for global engagement through specific educational activities and practices for children and young people seems to be most effective.

It can be found on the platform:

• Modules

Free and creative teaching materials in four subject areas:

• Movies

The movies offer a short introduction to some of the modules and generally inform about how to use the platform. A series of longer films refers to the implementation of philosophy material for children and young people.

• The media library

The media library contains numerous multimedia content such as links, literature, teaching materials and other projects that deal with the topics covered in the modules. They can be sorted using different filters, such as by topic, language and type of material.

A recipe for a better world, we educate our peers about food. Educational materials for young people in the age of 14-16

"A recipe for a better world, we educate our peers about food. Educational materials for young people in the age of 14-16" by Anna Dańkowska from the Krzyżowa Foundation and Magdalena Klarenbach from the Open Plan Foundation (Fundacja Otwarty Plan) is a publication addressed to young people who would like to play the role of educators for their peers and explore with them the subject of sustainable food. It addresses topics such as the resources needed to produce food, the origin of food, food waste and ways to reduce it, such as zero waste cooking, organic farming and the involvement of young people in campaigning activities.

The publication consists of three parts: a substantive introduction, methodological guidelines for conducting the workshops, and scenarios for the workshops together with the work cards - in a word, you can find everything that young people need to prepare and conduct sustainable food workshops with their peers.

Peer education is an approach little known in Poland, but it has already been successfully applied in some countries. We are all the more pleased to present "The recipe for a better world..." and we hope that it will be very popular among young, committed people.

Żywność - w ogrodzie i kuchni

We are currently working on new educational materials for youth work. They focus on the sustainable handling of food, raising awareness of the ecological costs of food production through activities to be carried out in the garden, kitchen and seminar room. The work takes place within the project: "Food - with tradition in modernity" in cooperation with our partner Slow Food from Berlin and with financial support from the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, which is also supporting the creation of an educational garden on the foundation site.

Educational materials will be suitable for use both inside and outside the school. Ten lesson scenarios are planned for the following topics: the role of soil, the seasonality of food, coping with its abundance and shortage (processing, food storage, waste), global interdependence, food sovereignty, the ecological footprint of the food system, biodiversity, the role of bees, climate change and its impact on crops, water management in food production.

A set of educational posters: Why should we restrict eating meat?

In Krzyżowa we encourage you to try the vegetarian and vegan diet. Every day we offer vegetarian meals in our kitchen. Why do we do it? Mainly for environmental reasons. For the sake of the planet, it is worth limiting meat consumption.

An information campaign on this topic, in the form of four posters, which addresses various aspects relating to the environmental costs of meat production and other types of food, encourages us to reflect on the environmental and climate consequences of our food choices and try to change our habits. We show that a vegetable diet can be not only healthy, but also colourful/urosized, tasty and nutritious!

Wszystkie ręce na pokład! A Handbook to Education for Socio-Ecological Transformation

We present a publication that is the result of the project "Courage to change, courage to act", which lasted in 2018-2021, carried out jointly by the Krzyżowa Foundation for Mutual Understanding in Europe, Kreisau Initiative e. V., Fundacja EkoRozwoju, Instytut Globalnej Odpowiedzialności, Konzeptwerk Neue Oekonomie, Fairbindung and Kolektyw Trenerski Lepiej.

As part of the project, nine trainings for educators from Poland and Germany took place, as well as three symposia in the field of education and sustainable development (including one in Krzyżowa: Let's go! How to create environmentally sustainable education places?). 

The publication is in the form of a textbook on education for sustainable development, transformative learning and education for post-growth. You can find there mainly exercises for working with groups, both teenagers and adults. They have been selected in such a way that with their help it is possible to work on three different levels, necessary in education for the socio-ecological transformation: acquiring awareness of the problems, deepening the knowledge about the realities and getting to know different perspectives, and taking action. The issues raised in the handbook concern, inter alia, critique of growth, social justice; and strategies for sustainable development. The publication proposes 22 exercises that are diverse, both in terms of the issues they touch upon and the methods of work. They were developed in a Polish-German team of educators and non-formal educators, taking into account the Polish context in education for the social and ecological transformation.

The publication is financed by Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU),  Polish-German Youth Cooperation and the Heinrich Böll Foundation. 

The electronic version and supplementary materials are available free of charge:
Download low-resolution publication (14 MB).
Download high-resolution publication (60 MB).
Download supplementary materials.