Instructor
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This Learning and Teaching Package (LTP) introduces the relationship between digitality and sustainability. Knowledge and pedagogical materials on topics such as harmful effects of digital technologies on the environment, the importance of digital technologies to deal with the climate crisis, and the social inequalities and social dependencies arising from digital infrastructures are addressed. The LTP offers pedagogical materials, invites hands-on projects, networking with school partners and NGOs, and reflection. It also addresses the question of the role of AI, Big Data and Robotics for a more sustainable future.
Pre- and Inservice-Teachers for students (6-10y)
0,5 ECTS
12,5 hrs
This unit introduces basic knowledge about the relationship between digitality and sustainability. The aim is to understand which ecological, economic and social challenges the digital world poses from a global perspective. But technologies have always been instruments of world measurement, also of world exploration, and thus can make a significant contribution to mitigating the climate crisis. To understand these interrelationships, the terms sustainability and digitality are defined first.
Duration: 3,5 hrs
Required materials:
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| Asynchronous Online Session |
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| Face to Face Session |
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At the end of this Unit 1, you will...
... define the terms digitality and sustainability in their diversity and use them in conversations.
... describe ecological, social and economic impacts of digital technologies on the basis of scientific findings.
... build up a basic knowledge of the importance of digital technologies for the study of natural phenomena and use it for educational practice.
... find and adapt further information and integrate it into heir own teaching.
... use the acquired knowledge for school and extracurricular projects.
In this glossary, you can collaboartively note all technical terms that are new or important to you and their meaning. This can help you to understand them better and to recognize connections.
Look at what your colleagues have already entered!
In this section, you will learn about the relationship between digital technology and the environment through experiments. This is best done in a beautiful Environment and in a face-to-face group session.
To learn more about for example ecological problems of digital technologies, you can finde more informations and materials in Unit 2-4 of this LTP.
Duration: 3 hrs
Required materials:
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Here you can find instructions for using the smartphone microscope.
Here you can take a look at a short ebook on the subject of The Flora in Darmstadt. This is just an example and you can be much more creative.
Task:
Task of Step 5: In Worksheet 1.1 we asked you to create an eBook with your research results. Here you will find a link to an app for creating an eBook. You can then show your results to your colleagues and discuss the experience.
Here you can find the Worksheet: Explore the environment with your smartphone in different formats. Once as a pdf file, so that you can use it directly in class or in teaching. The other file is in .pptx format so that you can modify the worksheet to suit you and your teaching.
The Worksheet: Explore the environment with your smartphone has a CC0 licence, so no rights are reserved. So feel free to modify and adapt the worksheet!
With this collaborative Taskcard-pinboard, we can collect apps and the experience of using these programs to explore the world.
Task:
Walk through the environment with your eyes open and notice how digital technologies influence and integrate into the environment.
Document your impressions through descriptions in text form, photos or sim
Share
your experiences with the experiments. What did you like? Where did you
encounter difficulties? What new things did you discover?
In this database you can upload your edited worksheet and share it with the other participants.
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Duration: |
30 minutes |
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Required materials: |
Worksheets |
Life cycle of a smartphone with short quiz
Activity to raise awareness among pupils.
In this section you will learn about the various parts of your phone and the precious metals and minerals that go into it. You will also get to know where many of these metals come from as well as what upcycling means and how trash can be turned into a treasure.
Duration: 3 hrs
Required materials:
- Old Phone, tablet or computer as well as readiness to discover
- Everything else will be provided in the workshops
| HANDS-ON WORKSHOPS |
The journey of a conflict-free mineral into the Fairphone 2.
TREASURE HUNT
after WS 1 "Unblack the Box!":
What kinds of valuable rare minerals are in a smartphone? Take a closer look and consider the sustainability of phone production.
TREASURE HUNT
after WS 2 "What's inside your Phone?":
TREASURE HUNT
after WS 3 "Pin the Planet!":
A lot of the things we own seem to inevitably end up in the trash. That's kind of a shame because most of those things can be upcycled in tons of fun and creative ways. This, in turn, reduces waste, which is great for the environment.
TREASURE HUNT
after WS 4 "FROM TRASH TO TREASURE!":
Activity to reflect on your own media use, media acquisition and media disposal. Based on these reflections, a discursive exchange of the participants is guided by the teacher.
Actionbound-Quiz
For this quiz you have to download the app "Actionbound". Then scan the code with your phone.
If you don't have the possibility to disassemble a smartphone yourself there is a video provided here.
Duration: 3,25 hrs
Required materials:Societies and technologies build and shape each other, but what are the ecological and social benefits of technological innovation? What are the ecological implications of the digital transformation and the associated ever-increasing demand for energy? From a social perspective, we need to ask who benefits from technological innovation, who has access to it and who can actively participate in it to ensure democratic and just societies in a global digital world.
Before you start working with your students, ask yourself some questions: Have you ever thought about the social or environmental consequences of our technological innovations? What are their effects on our social coexistence around the world? Why is the global demand for energy constantly increasing? What is the impact of AI on the environment and the climate crisis? In which parts of the world do people benefit from technological innovation?
In this context, it is important to look critically at one's own ideas about the world and to identify possible misconceptions. Use the materials provided to think about these aspects in more depth.
"Energy is critical to our modern lives. But our increasing demand for it has created a range of political, social and environmental problems." (LifeSquared)
"The first rendering displays the relative densities of Internet connectivity across the globe.." (Chris Harrison)
"Worldview Upgrader is a fun educational tool created to help people rid themselves of common systematic misconceptions about global development." (Gapminder)
"Watch everyday life in hundreds of homes on all income levels across the world, to counteract the media’s skewed selection of images of other places." (Gapminder)
As an introduction, the continents and some countries are worked out together. The first two worksheets start with the question "What do you know about our continents?" and offer a mini-quiz. Of course, other materials from geography lessons can be used as well. It is also helpful to have materials that can be used to explain in a child-friendly way why the earth is warming due to climate change (e.g. "Climate Change – According to a Kids" – linked below).
This video explains climate change to children. This video is an additional resource to the Start-Up.
The Climate Handprint is the complement to the CO2 Footprint. It shows and measures what we can do to protect the climate. We increase it through our own actions and by supporting social change. This site is in German.
"Ecological Footprint? How many planets do we need if everybody lives like you? When is your personal Overshoot Day"
German climate psychologist Thomas Brudermann provides illustrations related to climate psychology in German and English. These can be used under the Creative Commons licence CC-BY-ND. They may be useful for further discussion.
After brainstorming in the start-up phase, the students now learn step by step more about the paths that data takes when we use the Internet. This phase starts with a short video showing how our global connectedness is based on a transatlantic cable laid at sea more than a century ago. After the video has been shown, the students are given the task of finding out more about undersea cables; a website helps them to do this. One of the aims is to find out where the cables are located. Pupils then place strings on the world map to show where the various submarine cables are located. Additionally, they also present what else they have found out about submarine cables.
Use worksheet 3 and the website about submarine cables to find out about how computers are connected. To visualize, put threads to show the cables (groupwork). Ask the students to imitate how the cables connect us digitally. You can play a game depicting a signal going from Point A to B.
Next use worksheet 4 and this website about data centres to find out major data centres and server farms are located around the world. To visualize, take wooden cubes (groupwork). Ask the students to place them on the countries and continents that have the largest data centres and server farms.
Next use worksheet 5 and the website about e-waste to find out which countries produce a lot of e-waste and which don’t. To visualize, take e-waste samples (groupwork). Ask the students to place them on the countries which produce a lot of e-waste and which don’t.
This unit focuses on the future, with or without digital technologies. The students first receive information from various viewpoints on what a future with digital technologies could look like. The students are then asked to consider questions concerning various future scenarios. The focus here is on the "future workshop" method.
The unit begins with a video that introduces current digital developments and looks at them from different perspectives. Among other things, the terms robotics, artificial intelligence and digital capitalism are explained. Furthermore, reference is made to questions of social, ecological and economic sustainability.
Duration: 3,25 hrs
Required materials:
At the end of this Unit, the participants are able to:
... define current concepts on developments in the IT sector and enter into a discussion about them.
... work with others on future concepts and outline developments.
... define and argue measures for a more sustainable development in the IT sector.
This video gives an overview of what our future could look like. The visual presentation supports the content. The video is aimed primarily at younger students.
Here
you can see an overview of the various steps of the future workshop.
Step 1 - Step 6 represent the Development phase, Step 7 the
Consolidation and Step 8 the Follow-Up.
You can find the materials for conducting the future workshop HERE. The material is available as a booklet to print out (DinA3) and also as worksheets in DinA4 format. It is also possible to edit and adapt the worksheets individually.
In Step 2: COLLECT IMPRESSIONS you should collect various impressions. Take another look at Units 1 to 3.
What content surprised you the most? Which arguments do you find particularly important? Make notes in the booklet in Step 2 and try to write down the main arguments.
You can also collect your demands for your joint resolution in a digital tool here. We use taskcards for this purpose, for example.
