Energy Crisis Projects in Lower Secondary

“At ISW; we embrace the SBW vision for our learning partners to take responsibility for their own learning. We believe that autonomous learning encourages an individual to assume responsibility for their own learning and actions: it develops the ability to set objectives, determine approaches and find appropriate means and methods that are suited to the individual’s own learning pathways and possibilities.” Fractal element 2, SBW Haus des Lernens.

An example of this is found in the projects that our Lower Secondary learners are participating in at present. Given the current energy crisis facing Germany, learners have been tasked to carry out research into ways by which they could conserve energy in their daily lives, both in their homes and at school. These projects aim to empower the learners to gradually advance their individual ability to take responsibility within their community and to use their skills for the benefit of their fellow human beings and the environment.

The projects were designed so that learners had an opportunity to work collaboratively and thus promote the fractal of connecting. By connecting and networking with others, learners increase their ability to make real-world connections (both internal and external), generate multiple interfaces between themselves and the environment, and strengthen networks. The projects are structured so that learners can draw upon attitudes and skills learnt across subject disciplines, and apply them to a real-world situation; a crisis that is affecting our host-country, Germany, as well as the wider international community. Moreover, by embracing this projects ISW learners have the opportunity to work on a topic that is currently being studied by many learners in the German education sector, and it is apt that the project is taking place during the period of the COP27 Conference on the Environment in Egypt.
We look forward to sharing the projects with the wider community when they are complete. Watch this space!

Adrian Scarlett, Head of Secondary