Educational Programs

Teaching schools and kindergartens about the global goals and sustainability

Schools

We deliver value-based learning design and courses to Copenhagen primary schools via the Open School programme. Our courses relate to community development, biodiversity, inclusion, migration and poverty. The idea is to diversify the learning opportunities offered in schools and institutions and empower local professionals to design their own lessons in innovative and engaging ways. We focus on solutions that give children and young people a sense of their own impact on society and the great challenges we face. For now, the world goals are the particular focus of our programs:

GOAL 5: Gender Equality
GOAL 10: Reduce Inequality
GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
GOAL 15: Life on land

By engaging in a variety of methods and media, including podcasts, mapping, and through the lens of concrete examples, we look at how the Global Goals require society to be more solution-oriented and clear in its approach to the consequences of the world’s diverse crises and challenges.

For example, when we work with primary schools on SDG 10: Reduce Inequality in and between countries, we present a series of audio narratives based on interviews with homeless migrants in Copenhagen. This program also involves a visit to “Kompasset”, a shelter run by our collaborator the National NGO Kirkens Korshær, which helps distressed, homeless and job-seeking migrants.

When we work with World Goal 15, for example, we focus on biodiversity & insect life, design & green art, e.g. insect hotels.

Programs in Danish (PDF download)

Programs in Danish (PDF download)

PROGRAMMER PÅ DANSK (PDF DOWNLOAD)

Læringsforløb Kunst, Design, og Social Ansvarlighed

Læringsforløb Biodiversitet i Byen (pdf)

Læringsforløb Biodiversitet i Byen

Læringsforløb Hjemløshed og Verdensmål 10 (pdf)

Læringsforløb Hjemløshed og Verdensmål 10

Læringsforløb Verdensmål 11 (pdf)

Læringsforløb Verdensmål 11

Kindergartens

Over a number of years, we have built up knowledge and practice around the role of nature in the development of early childhood. The contact between nature and people has been isolated and the task has fallen to us educators namely to restore the contact, so that body, soul and mind are again connected to the minerals we absorb through the sea and the earth and the plants.

The individual child’s development is challenged by stress, chemistry and unfree educational frameworks. We want to re-establish awareness of the free person who can move independently and think independently, feel themselves and sense the world around them as part of life. Nature is the best tool, the best space for this development. The language, the body, the sight, the heart, the muscles and the nervous system, all dimensions of children’s development that we overlook in the education and learning systems.

At the same time, we are facing a huge transformation partly as citizens of megacities and partly as citizens of a world characterised by dramatic climatic changes.

Since 2010, social city’s CEO Anne Boukris has worked with consultancy and practice projects for Danish forest and nature kindergartens, including as frontwoman for the organisation Frie Børnehaver and as frontwoman in one of Denmark’s pioneer kindergartens “Røde Rose 2” (Red Rose 2).

The focus on children and their natural need for movement, interaction, language development, relationship building and sensory development is fundamentally dependent on sensation and presence in unlimited free spaces.

70% of the world’s population lives in urban settings, where access to soil, grass, trees and plants is reserved for the most privileged. But it is precisely the forest and nature kindergartens that provide access and opportunities for children regardless of their background.

Nature has at the same time become a precious scarce commodity and at the same time a great force that we must move in and with, despite the fact that nature often behaves overpoweringly. We interact with it and embrace it. We do this both in Europe and Latin America in close collaboration with researchers, educators, parents and children:

Natural areas that enable children to thrive, form, move and develop their senses

Experiences and learning

Stimulation of body and sensation

Climate awareness

Biodiversity awareness

Insight and learning about ‘from farm to table’ what we eat and where the food comes from