The Sustainable Backpack Programme
The Sustainable Backpack is a national priory initiated by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Ministry of Climate and Environment to support Norwegian schools to implement Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The Directorate for Education and Training and The Norwegian Environment Agency are given the responsibility of implementing the Sustainable Backpack in concert with the Norwegian Center for Science Education. The main aim of the Sustainable Backpack is to increase awareness, understanding and competencies in and for sustainable development to teachers and students in primary and secondary education. The ultimate goal of the Sustainable Backpack programme is to provide crucial opportunities for young people to be involved authentically in addressing socio-ecological challenges in their local and global communities, and to ensure that Norwegian students have the awareness, understanding and competencies needed to act in ways that support sustainable development. The Norwegian education system is responsible, both nationally and internationally, for educating the public about ESD. The current curriculum for education in Norway contains several competency goals for sustainable development to ensure that Norwegian students have the awareness, understanding and competencies needed to act in ways that support sustainable development. A new core curriculum is developed in Norway to challenge the educational system by calling for cross-curricular teaching to address interdisciplinary themes of: 1) sustainable development; 2) democracy and citizenship; and 3) public health and well-being. This new focus makes programmes like the Sustainable Backpack programme even more relevant for the future of teaching and learning.
Schools can apply to the Sustainable Backpack programme for support (financial and teacher training) to develop and implement sustainable development projects or programmes. By attending the Sustainable Backpack, the teachers become a part of a professional learning community for ESD. In this network, teachers meet other teachers and their supervisors three times a year. The first meeting is a national conference for all teachers in the beginning of the school year, followed up by regional network meetings in the autumn and in spring. At these network meetings the teachers get scientific (relevant science topics) and pedagogical content training, in addition to supervision on the ESD projects or programmes they develop and conduct at their school. Requirements to ESD projects or programmes supported by the Sustainable Backpack, is that the teaching is inquiry-based and inter- or multi-disciplinary, and that part of the teaching is carried out at alternative learning arenas (outside classroom). The schools are also encouraged to collaborate with external partners like local community, NGOs, museums, businesses in their local community. Requirements to the teachers participating in the Sustainable Backback is that they participate in the national conference and the two network meetings. In addition, they are obliged to describe their project/programme, so it can be communicated to others. The obligation to the school (school-leader), is to facilitate for the teachers to meet and work inter- or multi-disciplinary at the school and to make a plan for permanent establishment of the project/programme at the school.
