ZIELONA SIŁA

<< Background >>The PISA survey shows that concern for the global environment is important to the vast majority of 15-year-olds in OECD countries and economies, and 57% believe they can do something about the world's problems. Young people can act as a powerful voice for change when they have access to the right knowledge, skills, tools and opportunities. Currently, there is no sufficient educational offer on the Polish market to educate young people in the area of climate protection, pro-environmental attitudes, sustainable development. Without environmental education, there is no environmental protection. The more young people know about science, the better they will care about the environment. For this, in addition to knowledge itself, young people must be creative and have critical thinking skills. This is key for youth to spearhead the green transition to low-carbon, inclusive economies. At the time of the proposal, Partners identified that this kind of support for youth is not widely available. The partnership between the Green Industry Foundation, the Foundation for Development Education and Innovation, and Baba Husky offered an opportunity to create good practices in the area of green solutions.<< Objectives >>By implementing the “Green Power” project, the partners wanted to achieve the following goals:1. Knowledge and competence development: A key objective was to strengthen the creativity and critical thinking skills of young people, supporting their role in the green transformation. The partners intended to develop and test innovative training materials for educators that would help develop these competencies.2 Create a collection of good practices: The project was intended to enable the collection of examples of effective activities that support youth in developing creativity and critical thinking in an environmental context.3. Increasing the quality of youth work: Through new approaches and tools, the partners wanted to increase the quality of non-formal education, with an emphasis on innovation and recognition of educational activities in the field of ecology.4. Building networks: The project also aimed to expand international contacts and cooperation between organizations, which would translate into sustainability and scalability of the solutions developed.5. Supporting local communities: The partners wanted to fill a gap in environmental education, especially in the context of local communities, where this type of activity << Implementation >>1. Workshop for international experts - A workshop was held where experts from different countries shared their knowledge and experiences in developing creativity and critical thinking skills of youth in the context of green transformation.2 Gathering information and good practices - Research was conducted and European examples of good practices on enhancing creativity and critical thinking were collected. A report with recommendations and summaries in Polish, English and Finnish was produced.3. Development and testing of training materials - Training modules were prepared: “Critical thinking in green jobs,” ‘Creativity in green jobs,’ ”Climate in our hands: How Science Influences Environmental Action”.The materials included a variety of teaching tools, such as scenarios, podcasts, exercises and decision-making games.4. Testing the developed solutions - Test training sessions were conducted, taking into account the opinions of participants and experts. The results of testing were used to improve the training materials.5. Promotion and dissemination - webinars, workshops and conferences, to increase access to educational resources and support educators in their work.<< Results >>1. Project productsa. A collection of European good practices on enhancing youth creativity and critical thinking skills.b. Tested training materials for educators2. Direct resultsa. Enhanced knowledge and skills of partners' experts in enhancing youth creativity and critical thinking skills.b. Expansion by partners of the available instrumentarium (collection of good practices and training materials) that can be used to work with young people and their educators.c. Expansion of networks among partners and with cooperating institutions.d. Sharing the developed materials and practices with other educational organizations and educators interested in developing youth work competencies.3. Long-term impacta. Strengthening the role of youth in green transformation by developing their creativity and critical thinking.b. Increase the quality, innovation and recognition of youth work in the context of environmental education.4. Benefits for project partnersa. International knowledge and experienceb. Expansion of activities in new educational sectorsc. Introduction of new tools and programs dedicated to educators and youth