Title of the project: Sustainable consumption – network of parents and children

Funding organisation: Nordic Council of Ministers 

Implementation period: 2010

Project summary: The project was implemented by the Association “Workshop of Solutions” as a lead partner, and two partners: Širvintos District Education Centre, Lithuania and OVE (Organisationen for Vedvarende Energi), NGO, Denmark. The project promotes the education on the sustainable consumption with the main accent on energy saving and energy conservation in private households by developing an extracurricular study programme for elementary school level. The study programme has been developed by involving pupils and teachers from 2 schools in partner countries – Latvia and Lithuania in mapping their needs regarding knowledge on sustainable consumption. Two workshops for teachers and children took place, during which, using the method of critical thinking, the study programme plan, including the main themes of the study programme and its format was developed.

The Nordic partner – Danish NGO OVE, which established “The Schools’ Energy Forum”, shared the experience on how to organise activities for educational institutions and provides knowledge and materials within the fields of environment, energy, and energy conservation. Based on the plan, Danish partner provided additional materials for the content of the programme in English, partners of Latvia and Lithuania evaluated the programme and Latvian experts completed the content of the programme in English. After the amendments it was translated in Latvian and Lithuanian, and submitted for licence to the relevant institutions in Latvia and Lithuania. The programme has been electronically submitted to the teacher training university in Latvia, teacher NGOs in Latvia and Lithuania, and published in the Internet portals related to further education of teachers. The program is available for free download in the current home page and is suitable for extracurricular activities, such as school project weeks in Latvia. The programme is designed to stimulate children to introduce the principles of sustainable consumption at home.

Several schools have conducted lessons using the materials of the program and surveyed children about their consumption practices at home and the changes after the lessons. Responses of 24 pupils are collected so far from the teachers and they report the following answers:

• We sort waste at home;
• We follow how we spend the electricity and switch off the devices we do not use;
• I have told my parents and friends about the project aned also showed them the project materials;
• I presented the project materials to my parents;
• I have noticed that there are too few places where people can submit used electric devices;
• We started to use non-pastic bag for shopping;
• We do not buy products that are packed in small quantities;
• My parents were surprised about what I learned – how much waste we produce” in a year.

Children also reported what they remembered 2 months after the seminar on sustainable consumption and waste mamagement:

• I liked work in groups;
• Remember the picture we draw about the world in 100 years;
• I remember how much electricity we use in Latvia;
• I remember the huge amount of waste a family can produce;
• I remember the working materials and exercises;
• I remember that a potato skin can be burned and we do it at home now;
• I liked working together with teachers as equals;
• I remember that we use too much money for unnecessary things.

The training material is available for teachers in Latvia and Lithuania and teachers are encouraged to use it. Materials encourage children to involve their families in sustainable consumption patterns.