Pilot Phase for New MARUM School Project “Klima – Ich wandle mich!”

Climate protection, change, and crisis: Humans affect the climate, and as a result the environment - even the immediate one - is changing. The “Klima – Ich wandle mich!” project initiated by MARUM aims to give pupils concrete information about the options for action that they have.

Over a period of two years, both school pupils and teachers from four cooperation schools will work on climate protection in a scientific manner. They will be accompanied as part of the “Klima – ich wandle mich” (which translates to Climate – I’m Changing Myself) school project. The focus lies on the complex field between the required action for sustainable climate protection on the one hand and the societal and political frameworks on the other hand.
Action options and solution strategies concerning how they can form their daily (school) life so that the climate is not strained in the long term are to be developed together. School pupils will receive the required knowledge and an interdisciplinary network made up of researchers from various disciplines and teaching staff will help the pupils. The teaching staff and the researchers will work together within an open shaping and development process in order to bundle their competences.

Testing Strategies Based on Facts

“Children and youths are confronted daily with the necessity of lived climate protection in the frame of a sustainable future for us all. The requirements to deal with this are big and complex. They affect ecological, societal, and economic systems. Whilst working together closely with the cooperation schools, we will look at the daily life with individual concepts of value as a part of this complex causal network, in order to then find joint action paths that are suited to climate protection,” explains Dr. Sylvia Stegmann, project coordinator at MARUM. “Together with the pupils, we want to investigate, question, check, and test strategies based on scientific findings and data. These strategies are to be the ’tools’ that enable them to think and act for the future and are core competences for societal transformation processes.”

Schools Chosen Due to Climate-based Activities

The participating schools include Wilhelm-Olbers-Oberschule (Bremen Hemelingen), Neue Oberschule Gröpelingen, Oberschule an der Egge (Bremen Blumenthal), and Schule am Leher Markt (Bremerhaven). They were chosen based on the climate-based activities carried out by them to date.
“Children and Youths Think About Global Warming”
The Senator’s Office for Science and Ports is supporting the project financially. “I am pleased that MARUM initiated the school project as an internationally renowned center for marine research and the only research faculty at the University of Bremen. Climate change is one of the most important topics of our time. Alongside new scientific findings, I also hope that the project manages to bring pupils closer to science. Bremen is, after all, a state of science and we are therefore even more dependent on young and interested persons,” explains the senator for science, Dr. Claudia Schilling.

The Senator’s Office for Children and Education is also supporting the new school project. “Climate change is a topic that especially young people are interest in. Children and youths, quite rightly so, think about global warming and the effects on people, animals, and nature. MARUM’s school project addresses exactly this. School pupils from four high schools in Bremen and Bremerhaven will actively get to grips with the topic and will be accompanied by teaching staff and scientists. They will learn about the effect climate protection can have on the environment and what that means for individual life plans and the entire society. The teachers will continue to incorporate their experiences and findings into how lessons are designed. That profits us all, as we are only able to reach our climate protection goals with joint efforts and the great support of young people,” according to Senator Dr. Claudia Bogedan.

Results Are to Be Made Available to Other Schools

In the current pilot phase, comprehensive and cross-subject lesson materials and modules are being developed together with teachers from the cooperation schools and scientists. The core is formed by science-based and action-oriented confrontations with climate protection and which consequences could follow for the environment and society if one’s own behavior changes. After a conception phase that will last several months, the units are to be included in the curriculum and lessons in the second year and are to span across disciplines and be project-oriented.
“The design phase for lesson modules and project units is based on the Bremen education plan. We are hoping for a successful pilot phase so that the results can be made available to other schools in Bremen State at a later point in time and that the project can continue with further cooperation schools,” says Professor Michael Schulz, director of MARUM. He sees the project as an outstanding opportunity to make youths aware of the UN sustainability goals and to allow them to think about the goals in terms of decision-making processes. “At its heart, the project will deal will recognizing solutions for climate protection together and developing ideas for their realization.”