Luxembourg National Research Fund

Involving teenagers and adults in meaningful action towards sustainability and circular economy requires an inspirational space, where they are allowed to be creative and play. That space is the Äerdschëff, an off-grid building that manages its own resources to meet human needs in a resilient and sustainable way: autonomy in water, sanitation, heating, electricity and even food. The Äerdschëff is currently being built in Redange/Attert. Beyond being an inspiring physical space, it is also a pioneering educational space for applied sustainability, filling a gap in the Luxembourgish educational landscape in that it demonstrates and teaches ecological and circular design. The challenge in Luxembourg, the country with the second biggest ecological footprint on Earth, is to teach teenagers and adults systems thinking and collaboration to equip them with skills towards solving the complex challenges of the twenty-first century (climate change, ecological breakdown, resource depletion). The objective of ARCS (Äerdschëff Regenerative and Circular Science) is to develop, test and run an immersive, transdisciplinary, hands-on, science-based, modular educational programme around the theme of resources and circular design. Our inquiry-based method presents learners with a circular design challenge that needs to be solved collaboratively. ARCS aims to develop transdisciplinary, deep learning contexts based on collaborative gaming and systems thinking where both adult and teenage learners need to make iterative choices to find a design solution to a problem of their choosing. Depending on their choices, they end up with a certain complexity and practical quality of result that they can then reflect upon together.

To build capacity, we are also developing a Training of Trainers to involve teachers, trainers and educators from the formal and informal sector, in order for them to be empowered to effect more in-depth systemic change at their schools/organisations along with their pupils. Our educational programmes are also fed by the data that we collect from the Äerdschëff in two data cycles throughout the project (temperature at various areas of the building, energy use, water use, etc.). The long-term vision of the Äerdschëff is to be a multilevel community and educational project, and we have been involving many different institutions across sectors to build community and to work towards a regional coalition of partners that can find navigate ARCS and beyond.

The project “Indiana Jos – Naturwëssenschaft an Technik entdecken” offers STEM-activities for children, between the ages of 2 and 12 years, and a training program for STEM-interested pedagogues. Both is offered to non-formal and formal educational structures such as Crèches, Maison Relais Pour Enfants and Primary Schools.

In our public events we promote science to a target lay audience in collaboration with STEM-related research institutes. We follow a hands-on approach, which allows children to become researchers themselves in current themes of research. In 2020 we will organize a series of events, the “Indiana Jos Tour”, where researchers can promote their work and offer a hands-on workshop.

In 2021, on the occasion of our 10 year anniversary we will host a public symposium for STEM-education and in 2022 the “Indiana Jos Girls Tour” will address the gender gap in science with workshops that will be designed to especially appeal to girls. Each year will end with a “Researcher’s Market”, an event, where collaboration partners and STEM-pedagogues can promote their work and offer related workshops in a STEM-education fair to groups of children from non-formal and formal institutions.

Our public workshops and our training program can be booked online. The needed material and necessary equipment for the workshops, will be offered through the “Indiana Jos Fuerscherbus”. Within elisabeth we strive to include modern digital technology to address the challenge of ICT related STEM-education. Therefore we will train pedagogues in using SLR-cameras, USB-microscopes, beamers and tablets for the research- and documentation-process of the children participating in our STEM-activities.

We aim for trans-institutional, cooperative challenges within elisabteh to offer group related experiences, which emphasize on STEM-literacy of the group as a base of knowledge for the individual to accomplish a collective goal of the challenge. The challenges will be developed through the internal networking events of elisabeth.