I’ve recently come across this article in the Ecowatch environmental news website in which they describe a “revolutionary” school (The Green Free School in Copenhagen). In this school kids learn all the “standard” subject but the curriculum is focused on sustainability. There are no desks, no test, no blackboards. Children make projects and build stuff out of recovered materials. They garden and grow their food, recycle and compost. The educational approach is based on project learning, system thinking, and design thinking. In system thinking individual look at all the parts of a system and how these parts are interconnected and related, rather than focusing on one part at the time. The design thinking approach focuses on problem solving skills.

The school building itself is made of sustainable materials! The school houses also a workshop where kids experiment with materials and repair bicycles. Kids spent a great amount of time outdoors and the architectonic aspect of the class is also redesigned. There are no blackboards teachers have to stand in front of. Rather, teachers supervise the practical projects the kids are working on. There aren’t many computer in the school but there is a computer lab for kids who want to make internet researches or write blog post (the older ones).

The school isn’t really “free” though (tuition is about $380 per month), but it uses 5% of this fee to help kids that cannot afford it. It opened in 2014 and it now has 150 children between the ages of 5 and 14.

Sources :

https://www.robhopkins.net/2018/12/10/karen-maclean/

https://www.ecowatch.com/sustainability-school-denmark-2645190499.html?rebelltitem=4#rebelltitem4

https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/responsible-living/stories/green-school-denmark-sustainable-future