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Smart Energy, Smart Schools: Project-Based Learning About Energy Transition and Digitalization

Smart Energy, Smart Schools: Project-Based Learning About Energy Transition and Digitalization

Nicole Raschke (TU Dresden, Germany), Lisa Wey (TU Dresden, Germany), and Thomas Arendt (TU Dresden, Germany)
Copyright: © 2023 |Pages: 21
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-5033-5.ch015
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Abstract

This chapter presents the project “Smart Energy Smart Schools” (SENSOr), which develops project-oriented learning environments on the topic of energy in public school buildings. The project builds bridges between education for sustainable development and digitalization. In the chapter, three different educational modules, the environmental measuring station, the history of light sources, and the planetarium are dealt with in more detail. They show a useful connection between ESD and digitalization or digital media. Another focus is the evaluation of the first feedback from the students and teachers. This leads to the formulation of initial theses that can be derived from this. Finally, various opportunities and challenges that arose on an individual and institutional level during the implementation of the project are described.
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Theoretical Background

The need for a sustainable, future-oriented development is unquestioned and is described in the WBGU1 report “World in Transition” (WBGU, 2011) as a comprehensive social transformation process. Especially in the confrontation with multiple crises, shaping social debates currently, it is postulated that education for sustainable development can have an important impact. Although many people are interested in sustainability and associate great chances to a sustainable future development, they have little faith in the achievability of the desired future (Grund & Brock, 2020). These insights are contradictory to a certain extent to the requirements of a social transformation process in which actors participate as responsible citizens in designing a sustainable development. The project on which this article is based addresses the issue and examines the chances and limitations of designing learning opportunities in the context of the energy transition.

ESD aims to empower people to think and act in a sustainable way which requires critical reflection on one's own actions and active participation in social decision-making processes (de Haan, 2008). Regarding this, learning opportunities should be designed to enable own experiences of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1977; Oberrauch et al., 2021), as well as encouragement. These actions demand reflection in the context of sustainability concepts. Research projects in the context of ESD have shown that proactive action and self-efficacy experiences have a great impact on students' sustainability-related awareness, interest formation and attitudes (e.g., Fisman, 2005; Malberg Dyg & Wistoft, 2018).

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