Lies Warlop, sustainability coordinator, technology teacher and mentor at AICS
‘Sustainability begins with falling in love with the world'
In my technology classes, students work according to a Design Technology cycle. They come up with ideas, develop them and create prototypes. I try to integrate sustainability into all my lessons, so that students learn from an early age to take care of their environment.
Falling in love with the world and taking initiative
For me, education is a place where students get to know the world and learn to appreciate it. When you care deeply about something, you naturally want to take good care of it. This is how students develop their own vision on sustainability. In practice, this means that we start raising awareness at an early stage. I personally mainly work with teenagers, and the focus is often on their immediate surroundings. For example, they organize the AICS Eco vision day entirely on their own, write letters to major polluters, or design projects that improve our school. Esprit Scholen supports this through the sustainability fund, which helps me financially support students’ ideas. By giving them ownership, not only does their interest grow, but so does their self confidence.
Technology, behaviour and collaboration
The major challenges of our time, such as the climate crisis, are reflected in my work. Technology and sustainability go hand in hand. Students learn to think in terms of solutions and to reflect on their own behaviour. In my lessons, they program solutions for the Sustainable Development Goals using microbits and build prototypes from reused materials. My dream is that sustainability will naturally become the standard in education, so that both students and teachers always view their work through a sustainable lens. In that case, my role as a coordinator would no longer be necessary.