Allgemein, General Information

General Information

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Water is an essential resource for every living being. Nevertheless, the drinking water resources decreased in the last decades and the pollution of water increased. In many parts of the world water scarcity is a big problem. Effective concepts of sustainable water consumption are more important than ever.

This blog-site contains schedules and educationl methods and approaches from two Eramus+ Training courses in 2015 and 2017 for youth-workers in Berlin(Germany).

During the trainings we dealt with different ecological, economic, political and social aspects of the topic water.

According to the title “Water is Life – Education on Water & Sustainability” of the second course we learned, tryed out and evaluated different interactive pedagogical approaches/methods, which enabled us to integrate the topic water & sustainability in our future daily pedagogical work.

The aim is to sensitize our learners with these attractive methods for this topic and motivate them, to become active by themselves in future.

Furthermore we acquired background knowledge through inputs and did excursions/ guided tours to different places in Berlin which are connected to water and sustainability.

Beside the daily programs this blog offers as well a collection of resources with background-informations, educational approaches, links and diary-articles and comments from the participants of the courses.

Feel free to make use of the collection and spread and link this site :-).

Resources, Wednesday, 27th of September 2017

Simulation Game – Who is the owner of the water?

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On Wednesday we performed a simulation game in which we discussed about a devised plan of the city of Lang to change the riverbed and the dikes around the city. The description is written for 8 players.

There are four parties with different opinions and interests: Representatives of the city of Lang, Local Farmers, Affected Residents, Environmentalists.

Representatives of all these groups are invited to a round table to discuss about the plans for the dike.

You can download the map of the city and the description for the game here:

Water Roleplay

Water Roleplay printable

Resources, Saturday, 23rd of September 2017

Teambuilding Methods

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These are the team-building methods we used on the second day of the training. Feel free to try them out yourself.

Chair-Game

Group-Size: At least 10 people

Age: for youths and adults

One trainer, to explain the method.

Duration: ca. 5-10 min.

Procedure:

The group divides in 2 smaller groups. Each group stand in opposite of the room in a row on chairs. (Each person on one chair). The aim is, to change with all the chairs to the other side of the room. The group members are not allowed to touch the ground. The group, who is faster with building a new row on the other side of the room, is the winner.

Pen-Game

Group Size: At least 12 people

Age: for youths and adults

One trainer, to explain the method.

Duration: 15-20 min.

Procedure:

The group divides in smaller groups of 4-7 persons per group. Each group get a marker-pen and has the aim to put down the pen in teamwork as far as possible from a borderline. It`s not allowed to touch the floor or to throw the pen. But the group members can hold each other. Each group has 10 minutes time for trying out (in different rooms, that they can`t see the others). Afterwards the battle starts – which group is able to put the pen in the furthest distance from the line? The moderator measures the centimetres and writes them down.

Resources, Saturday, 30th of September 2017

Where do you stand?

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This is a method we used to make a discussion about different options regarding climate change possible. The method can also be used with different questions.

„Where do you stand?“

Group-size: At least 5 persons

Age: youths and adults

One trainer is needed.

Duration: 15-30 minutes (it depends on the upcoming discussions)

Procedure:

The moderator reads out loud statements to the whole group. After each statement/question everyone should position him_herself in the room on an imaginary line. One side is „yes“ the other „no“. („yes, i totally agree; „no“, I don`t agree). It`s also possible to position yourself in between. After each question, the moderator asks single persons, for which reasons they stand at a certain point, what opinions do they have? It`s also possible, that the group starts to discuss with each other. When people are after a while convinced of other opinions (the arguments of others), they can still change their position in the room.

Possible statements related to environmental topics:

  • To be active in environment protection is not important anymore, because it´s already too late for it.
  • People from our generation are very convenient and don`t want to make an effort to protect the environment.
  • People, who often go by plane are ignorant related to climate change.
  • We would have to restrict ourselves a lot, thereby all inhabitants of the world get good living conditions in a healthy environment.
  • I live in an ecofriendly way.
  • If we we work in environmental education, but we live not in an ecofriendly way by ourselves, can we reach our learners then?
  • It`s senseful, to show our learners szenarios of environmental catastrophies, to make them wake up and become active.