Informed by the EU Green Deal and the new Green City Accord, arki_lab has developed a teaching material referred to as Green urban development. This resource targets in the 6th and 7th grades, and is guided by a focus on climate, biodiversity, green urban development, and “everyday activism.” This material is designed to provide students with: insight into the EU’s work to create more climate-conscious cities with increased biodiversity; an understanding of why it is important to act as part of a community under the context of climate change; methods through which they can make a ‘green’ difference in their local area through design thinking, and smaller sketching and construction projects.

Background
The EU’s Green Deal and the new movement of Europeans leaders for greener cities, the Green City Accord, is a response to a series of alarming reports on the state of the climate and biodiversity. Global trends and challenges, such urbanization and climate, must be addressed jointly. While climate is high on the agenda of young people, it is important that the current agreements and strategies are communicated to the “climate generation.”

Exploratory material
The teaching material is constructed through four phases of a design thinking process, here: discover, dream, design, and execute. An introduction to design thinking and design tools, these are a basis for students to acquire knowledge and skills to design and build their own projects. The learning cards are divided into five topics from the EU’s Green City Accord: water; air; nature and biodiversity; circular economy and waste; noise. Each of these has a set of learning cards containing 2-3 subtopics, with information and activities corresponding to their subject. Focused on interdisciplinary and exploratory learning processes, the educational cards will be distributed nationally through online learning portals.

Read more about Helsingør Municipality's experience with the material here