Coordinator: K. Christodoulou, EFL Teacher

Pedagogical team: H. Kaneletopoulou (Greek Language and History Teacher), Dr M. Panagiotopoulou (Greek Language and History Teacher).

In September 2015, UN General Assembly in New York adopted the Sustainable Development Goals as the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. These 17 interconnecting Goals address the global challenges humanity faces, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate, environmental degradation, prosperity, and peace and justice.

Inspired by the Goals and based on their interconnectivity, the program’s pedagogical team decided to work on them with a large group of Ralleio students from all classes setting as the basic pedagogical aim the ways in which citizens can actively contribute to collaborative, environmentally aware, multicultural societies of the future. Active student participation was encouraged by using student-centered techniques within the two working groups. In addition, emphasis was put on interdisciplinary approaches given the width of human activity covered by the Goals.

During the first stage of the program participating students worked as one group and became familiar with the Goals themselves and the necessary mindset and tools for their achievement. At the second stage, they were divided into two groups. Twelve students were selected as delegates for the 19th Student Conference of the UNESCO Associated Schools Network in the Prefecture of Attica which was held at the Greek-French School “Jeanne d’ Arc” on the 21st and 22nd of February 2019. This group undertook the theoretical research of the program studying relevant international hardcopy and online literature, which they shared with the second working group. They also enacted a short symbolic theatrical “installation” on the first day of the Conference. The second group, focusing mainly on Sustainable Development Goals 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and 13 (Climate Action), undertook the management of the Recycling Station of the school, in which Ralleio community collects and recycles used batteries, used frying oil, electric light bulbs, printer ink cartridges, plastic bottle caps and out-of-order electric and electronic devices. The team, in an effort to raise the school community environmental awareness, designed two campaigns: they printed the leaflet «A LAZY PERSON’S GUIDE TO SAVING THE WORLD» (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/), laminated it and stuck it on the notice board of each classroom and they organized a campaign of collecting out-of-order electric and electronic devices in the framework of European Waste Reduction Week. As a result, they handed over for recycling 58 kilos of used batteries and 975 kilos of out-of-order electric and electronic devices. Implementing the whole-school-approach, this team worked in close cooperation with the student groups of Ralleio European programs Erasmus+KA2 CCR/ Climate Change Ready and ROOTS/ routes to Outdoor Oriented Teaching and Sustainability.