The City of Ljubljana has developed a project in collaboration with teachers and school principals where savings from the energy efficiency of renovated buildings are invested. This investment is in educational programmes and has a specific purpose: building awareness among the young generation around sustainable development, environmental protection and alternative resources. This is to encourage their creativity and innovativeness, and to equip them with the knowledge and the skills necessary nowadays to cope with environmental challenges.
The young generation increasingly feels the burden of environmental issues such as limited resources, climate change and the need for renewable sources of energy. The City of Ljubljana’s programme, ‘Raising Children’s Awareness of Sustainable Development’ aims to enrich the educational process in primary schools and kindergartens. It provides content and innovative teaching methods that directly contribute towards higher awareness among children about the need for higher energy efficiency, rational use of resources and sustainable development. In this way, the pupils are provided with the tools needed to cope with certain pressing issues, for example, strategies for saving resources and the consequences of such efforts.
The project goes beyond this and aspires to train future generations on rational use of energy, water and other resources through direct experience, using natural sciences, scientific research, technical professions and manual skills so their innovativeness and creativity are stimulated. This can finally develop their capacity for self-initiated tackling of challenges and exploring the opportunities in school, local and global spaces.
The project also envisages training programmes for teachers such as ecology, sustainability and alternative resources to provide them with more practical knowledge. Such training will enable them, depending on the school grade, to implement innovative educational activities with innovative teaching approaches. It will enrich the regular teaching process in schools, and develop and use the didactic games and experiments to introduce pre-school children to the field of ecology.