A portable solar suitcase with a battery and solar panel, eco bricks, electricity from seawater, and 3D printed coral reefs… these are just a few of the innovative solutions imagined and implemented by teachers and learners through the Climate Action Project.

Belgian IT teacher, Koen Timmers, created the Climate Action Project in 2017. He envisioned it as a useful resource to help teachers incorporate climate change into their lesson plans. He didn’t expect it to become a global movement in just five years.

The project is helping to transform education and support teachers by creating a space for climate change and sustainable lifestyles in the curriculum. It also promotes a global outlook by encouraging dialogue and collaboration between learners in different countries.

Today, over 10 million learners from 107 countries have taken part in the six-week online course which has been endorsed by world-renowned conservationist Dr Jane Goodall, Amnesty International, Microsoft, WWF, NASA, UNESCO, the UN Environment Programme, and ministries of education across 16 countries.

Transformative teaching encourages learners to take action

“Climate change is something that’s affecting everyone, everywhere. I created the project so that students and teachers from all over the world could talk about this issue, learn from each other, and take action,” says Koen. And that, he believes, is the key to the project’s success.

“You can learn by reading a textbook, you can learn from a teacher, you can learn from a newspaper. But in all of those cases, you really only have one side of the story,” says Koen. “But when you are able to speak to someone living on another continent, and you realise you share passions (like football and sustainability), you build a relationship with them.”

Using technology to transform and expand teaching platforms

Koen’s passion has always been to help transform the field of education. “I wanted to work with people. I really love explaining stuff, and I wanted to do something that was relevant in society, so I became a teacher.”

Since 2016, Koen has been involved in helping to set up and equip a learning centre in the Kakuma refugee camp.  Through the facility, over 420 teachers from 75 countries around the world offer online lessons to the learners in the refugee camp. 

“Through these classes, learners from different countries are able to have meaningful conversations with the learners at Kakuma,” says Koen. “It helps all of the learners develop a global outlook and break down stereotypes.”  

It is this online interaction between learners from around the world that inspired Koen’s Climate Action Project.

Supporting the SDGs through the Climate Action Project

As well as being a useful teaching resource, Koen’s vision for the Climate Action Project was to support the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by giving teachers and learners a platform to help create positive change in the world.

“I wanted to make a way for students from all across the world to connect with each other, to share how climate change is affecting them, and to be empowered to create solutions.”

“I think what surprised me the most about the Climate Action Project is how different the stories are,” says Koen.

Participants in Ireland convinced the government to create a new logo for recyclable plastics while learners in India built a solar-powered car. In Malawi, students planted 60 million trees, in the US they built a portable solar-powered battery pack in a suitcase, and in Indonesia they developed their own ecobricks.

Koen and his partners also developed the EarthProject app which allows users to track their climate-friendly behaviour, such as avoiding red meat, buying a refurbished phone, and ride-sharing. It adds up the amount of carbon saved through these actions.

The app proves that incorporating something like the Climate Action Project into lessons is one of the ways we can transform education and achieve the SDGs.

“Students are not only learning about climate change. They are taking action, and coming up with sustainable solutions.”

Prioritising teachers and learners is key to transforming education

While Koen supports the use of technology as a teaching resource, he believes that nothing is more effective than a passionate, skilled teacher.

“We need to increase teacher salaries so that we can get the very best teachers back into the classroom. To be a successful person you have to know how to solve problems, filter fake news, and build relationships with people who are different to you. That’s how teachers can help their students build a global outlook. And that, in my opinion, is the future of education.”

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●       To join the Climate Action Project for free, register here: https://www.climate-action.info/user/register

●       The Kakuma Project, as well as several other educational facilities in the refugee camp are supported through donations to the Kakuma NPO. Partners include Maggie, UNHCR and TAG. 

●       The Climate Action Project is supported through Koen’s non-profit organisation, Take Action Global.

Learn more about the #TeachersTransform campaign as part of the Transforming Education Summit.

Photo credit: Koen Timmers

Education disruptions due to the COVID-19 crisis have shone the light on existing disparities separating learners between and within countries. We spoke to two teachers who supported their students and helped their communities overcome immense hardship throughout the pandemic, despite lacking necessary resources. Their stories show how teachers are at the heart of combating disadvantage and ensuring learning continuity. They also highlight the dire need for more investment in teachers and schools.

Sarita Nair teaches at Chetan Dattaji Gaikwad English Medium School and Junior College in Pune, India. Prior to the pandemic, students and teachers at her school were completely reliant on the traditional teaching and learning methods. There was limited use of digital technology by teachers due to lack of resources and no access to advanced teaching tools. Very few parents participated in student's day to day learning and were completely dependent on the school's education system.

Florence Ooyo, who teaches at Brightburn School in Nairobi, Kenya explained that before the pandemic emerged, some students already could not afford adequate materials and resources for learning, or even their school fees, leading them to stay home and disrupting their education. Some students also dealt with family conflict issues, causing them socio-emotional distress and impacting their ability to focus in class. “It makes work difficult for the teacher to complete the syllabus since at times you find a quarter of the class away from school,” Florence told us.

Coronavirus created an array of new problems for teachers and students. Joblessness affected the parents of many students at Brightburn School, causing many of them to relocate to rural areas in order to sustain their family and absenteeism surged even higher. Many families were surviving with one or two meals per day, causing children to lack the necessary nutrition to thrive in school. Uncertainty led to anxiety and trauma “What about tomorrow?” Florence wondered, “What is going to take place in the coming days? Most of the families were really affected psychologically and emotionally by this uncertainty.”

“The teachers too were affected by this uncertainty,” Florence told us. Unsure if they would get their next paycheck, many took on second jobs and tried to find additional ways to make ends meet. As many teachers did in fact lose their pay as schools closed down, Florence worked with organizations in the area to distribute food to her students and fellow teachers. She also visited students at home and provided them with the necessary tools to continue learning.

Florence emphasized the need to build a relationship with each student to understand their particular needs, help them build their self-esteem and support them socio-emotionally.

Sarita shared stories of similar challenges at her school in India:

"Fear of the disease and uncertainty gripped everyone mentally and physically. The pandemic brought new challenges for the teachers; the transition from in-person classroom teaching to virtual and to online classes and adapting to Zoom class completely presented a unique challenge. The teachers and students were majorly hit financially. Many parents lost their daily wages due to the unforeseen turn of events due to the Covid -19.”

Sarita and her fellow teachers took part in a training program to adapt to online classes. They reached out to various external organizations to raise funds and resources to support the community with necessary devices for remote learning as well as nutritional support for families struggling to make ends meet.

She also noted that, “teachers invested time and energy in communicating frequently and building relationships with the parents and children even during school vacations. This was seen as important because the school felt they were an integral part of the community they were serving and wanted to ensure they supported them in every possible way.”

“Lack of personal contact with students by the teachers, emotional turmoil due to death of relatives, no school hours, adapting to no physical activity and no social interaction... This scenario caused behavioral changes amongst the students,” she told us. To deal with this they set up daily activities that involved students’ parents, including arts and crafts, gardening, science experiments, and storytelling sessions focused on mental wellbeing. The school also found ways to celebrate local festivals from home, touring students’ homes virtually to see the way they decorate their homes and participate in the festivals.

“The idea was to keep the community together, connected and provide a sense of belonging and comfort knowing everyone was dealing with this unique situation and that we are not alone in this war against Covid-19,” Sarita explained.

When lockdown restrictions eased, teachers visited students at home to get a sense of how they and their families were coping. In addition to mobile phones and tablets, they distributed food rations to families in need. Financially secure parents lent a hand to support students and donated books through the "Parents as Partners" initiative. "We ensured that all the students continued to get education irrespective of their ability to pay their school fee," Sarita concluded.

Sarita and Florence’s stories show how teachers are at the heart of learning continuity and highlight the dire need for more investment in teachers and schools. Education systems were already in need of investment prior to the pandemic, but the COVID-19 pandemic has made matters much worse, jeopardizing progress and widening already large disparities between high- and low-income countries. No teacher should have to worry about whether they will receive their next paycheck. No student should have to drop out because they cannot afford tuition fees or school materials.

In sub-Saharan Africa the pupil/trained teacher ratio is close to one trained teacher per 58 pupils at primary level and approximately 43 pupils per trained teacher at secondary. Furthermore, new projections show that by 2030, countries in the region will need to recruit 15 million teachers. Florence is hoping that moving forwards, policy-makers and education stakeholders wake up to these realities: “The government needs to support us and acknowledge the effort our community schools are making.”

The International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 is thus calling on national governments, the international community and education funders – both public and private – to invest in a human-centred approach to recovery by building resilient, teacher-supportive education systems that recognize the critical role teachers play in communities. This should include increasing domestic and international funding, developing holistic teacher policies that have been properly budgeted, strengthening teacher capacity and autonomy, and investing in data and information systems that improve effectiveness.

Thanks to Alokit, Dignitas and Global School Leaders for their support in contacting Sarita and Florence.

Caption: Beawar, Rajasthan, India, April 6, 2021: A teacher and students wearing protective face mask in a classroom at a school amid spike in coronavirus cases across the country. 
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com/Sumit Saraswat

Education has been on the front line of COVID-19. For six months now, teachers around the world have been navigating education systems affected by school closures, adapting and improvising to keep their students learning. 

Even as many countries usher their students back into classrooms, with all the fresh challenges that entails, inspiration can be found in the examples of teachers who rose to meet the occasion. They remind us that teachers are more than just conduits for knowledge. They are a vital lifeline for their students, now and during whatever is next.

Remote learning without internet

The challenge faced by Fransiskus Xaverius Faima, a teacher from Indonesia, is a familiar one: how can teachers and students connect if many are not connected to the internet? Internet coverage in Indonesia is fairly high - around 66 percent of people have access - but connectivity rarely stretches beyond urban hubs. While schools are closed, students in remote communities like Faimau’s may not be getting any education at all. Faimau from the Kecil Fatutasu elementary school in East Nusa Tenggara, now travels for hours each day to set up small learning groups. He takes a few students at a time through lessons, gathered around his single laptop. 

Elsewhere in Indonesia, responding to the pandemic has required a creative approach. In West Papua, teachers are working with education consultants to design offline curriculums, printing and distributing materials that creatively integrate students’ home surroundings into their lessons. A simple pot of boiling water, for example, can teach a student much about physics and mathematics. 

For Faimau, all this extra effort is simply part of a teacher’s duty. Education, he understands, works best when it is consistent: “children have to keep learning because if we just leave, they will go back to square one.” His ad-hoc classes may not be able to offer his students everything they would get in a traditional classroom, but, for now, keeping them engaged is enough.

Delivering free school meals

Whilst widespread internet access in the UK has encouraged a national transition to online learning, the COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges of a different sort. The Western Primary School in Grimsby is situated in a deprived part of town, where four out of ten students receive free school meals. For many, it’s the only good meal they’re guaranteed all day. Zane Powels, the assistant head teacher at Western Primary, recognised the impact lockdown could have on these students. 

Five weeks after schools in England closed, Powels had already delivered more than two thousand meals to students, walking door-to-door, laden with lunch packages containing sandwiches, fruit and snacks. This also allowed him to check up on the children’s wellbeing whilst locked-down at home. 

5 weeks into lockdown and I have walked over 125miles delivering nearly 2000 school meals with a combined weight of over 1100kg. More importantly, children and parents from our school have been supported through these tough times and will continue to be ‘The school that cares’, tweets Powels.

Western Primary is not unique – the centrality of teachers and schools to students’ lives has been thrown into sharp relief during the pandemic, and Powels exemplifies the sense of responsibility felt by teachers everywhere.

Teaching in a truck

In Guanajuato, Mexico, a teacher known only as Nay, recently won widespread praise on Twitter after a picture emerged of her holding a makeshift lesson in the back of her red pick-up truck. She and a student, both masked, sat around a small table, pouring over school work. Nay is an elementary school teacher who specialises in working with children with disabilities such as autism. 

Just over half of people in Mexico have access to the internet. Aware that many of her pupils cannot get online or even have books, she converted her truck into a mobile classroom and travelled for hours a day to sit with them in person. While Nay is insistent that her extra efforts are nothing special, her story does highlight how the pandemic has hit vulnerable students the hardest. In these difficult times, it’s those students who occupy their teachers’ thoughts the most.

These three stories highlight what all teachers know: nothing beats being there in person. The situation with COVID-19 continues to evolve, and the promise of a return to ‘normality’ may be on the horizon. But until then, let’s take inspiration from those teachers who are doing everything to be there for their students.

Cover image published in thejakartapost.com courtesy of teacher Fransiskus Xaverius Faimau.