Education for Sustainable Development is still mostly unknown and unused in schools around the world, yet it is a SDG 4.7 and its implementation is urgent! EduGems Finland is an online Learning Academy for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) helping teachers all over the world to transform teaching and learning by combining STEAM and ESD with motivation and confidence!

But where did it all start?
Dr. Juntunen conducted a four year research ending 2015 which led to an e-book of ESD in holistic science education and was translated into four languages. Dr. Juntunen found out the World lacks holistic science lessons aligning with sustainability and pedagogy typical in Finland - trusting the capabilities of learners. According to her research, schools globally could empower their learners to a higher extent to use their capacity to understand wicked, systemic global challenges. Dr. Juntunen noticed a global need for training programs that are based on Education for Sustainable Development and future skills pedagogy. This and Covid-19 resulted in a women-led online learning academy called EduGems Finland.

 
Using the reputation Finland has on being a world leader in education and the fact that Finland already has successfully incorporated holistic ESD to its curriculum, Finland is currently taking the lead in making this transformation possible worldwide, and EduGems Finland is leading the way!

EduGems Finland’s mission is to inspire and help teachers around the world in integrating Education for Sustainable Development into all areas of education. The emphasis is on empowering schools to be ambassadors for the change - by coaching them to plan their own ESD practices - only then they will own their own change and innovate a direction towards the better!

Adults are responsible for the change that has to start with the educators themselves. EduGems Finland supports the transformation of teaching and learning by giving teachers concrete tools and ideas for how to use student-centered project-based and phenomenal approaches. These collaborative methods involve improving teachers’ and students’ (and even soon their parents’) holistic skills. In practice, this means learning systems thinking and 21st century skills, which are vital in designing a positive impact for local circumstances, which differ all over the World. Principals and teachers need encouragement to apply the most crucial scientific and pedagogical knowledge: systemic planetary boundaries and ESD. 

Module 1 - Educational Approaches in Finland
The main objective is to understand educational philosophy, classroom management and lesson planning in Finland. You will get a short introduction to Education for Sustainable Development.

Module 2 - Sustainable Development in Education
The main objective is to learn more about ESD - the why, how, what? Get ideas for integrating ESD into various subjects. You will learn holistic, phenomenon based and student-centered approaches and how to teach 21st century skills. You will gain confidence to introduce, apply and discuss science topics as well as to learn to support action competence skills.

Teachers of all levels require some level of motivation and both modules 1 and 2 have contents related to motivation and growth as a teacher. Both modules talk about educational experiences in Finland, and many teachers around the world need to know and learn from Finland education system. Besides ESD is a new concept which is already incorporated and practiced in Finland and since ESD needs to be disseminated to children of all ages, it is important that teachers of all levels need to know ESD, being endorsed by the UNESCO, and many nations are signatory to it.

Lesson planning, whether it is at preprimary level or primary/high school, needs to be child-centric and interesting, practical based. Therefore, all teachers need to learn how to plan a lesson properly. Similarly, classroom management needs to be done perfectly be it at pre or high school level. Climate change affects people of all ages, castes, nationalities and colours; and only through a joint collaboration of teachers teaching at all levels can solve this issue. Every local issue has a global connection and vice versa, so this needs to be understood/accessed by all global citizens (Earth Summit-Agenda 21, chapter 36)

ESD is a multidisciplinary and multi-level subject that should be integrated at all levels and subject, for developing positive values right from the formative stage of the children. The teachers’ competencies need to be developed with the understanding of main global issues and also learners’ pedagogical needs, need to learn to tune up both for a balanced education. 

Any teacher who is well-versed with the handling of smaller (prep classes) could easily hand upper (sr.) classes. Thus the ideas of delivering lessons mentioned in module 1 and 2 can easily be replicated in higher classes which children really enjoy. Though Science subject is focused in the course in ESD integration, same methods can/should be applied in other subjects, to make it more holistic and multi-disciplinary.

The concepts of education, global challenges and opportunities are almost the same whether it is at preprimary or other levels, and every teacher should be aware of all this. The only difference would be that the prep. Children learn the concepts (cognitive), the middle school start feeling (affective) and the high school/college students start acting (psychomotor), thus dong something rightly after a clear understanding (from awareness to action). Teachers, whether they teach preprimary of university, the main objective is to produce citizens that are aware, responsible and proactive in saving the only planet, as planetary citizens.    

YES! Start with Module 1 - Educational Approaches in Finland