Urban Architects 2050
Imagine you are a city architect in 2050. You are helping to build the city of the future. But what does that city look like? Who will live there? Where is room for nature? What do we do with waste? How do we move around? How do we limit our energy consumption? You devise and build (to scale) what a city could look like in 2050. First you learn about different challenges of cities. Then you design and build your city in small groups. What themes do you find important? How will they take shape in your city?
Getting started with STEM and Education for Sustainable Development
This project demonstrates that pupils are not at the mercy of fate, but that they can take action themselves and visualise a sustainable future. By allowing pupils to design a sustainable city on a small scale, they can gain insight into and devise solutions for the metropolitan challenges that characterise Brussels. These include challenges in the areas of transport, waste, nature, climate and energy. Pupils learn to better understand the complexity of urban issues in the City Architects project. They learn to collaborate and weigh up interests, compare their designs with specific Brussels neighbourhoods and reflect on the applicability of their solutions. In this way, pupils further develop their STEM skills.
We also focus on education for sustainable development (ESD), so that pupils learn to reflect critically and discuss social and scientific issues. ESD focuses on value thinking, systems thinking and action thinking. To this end, we use the material already developed in the EcoZoo project.
To conclude the project, we had established a unique collaboration with BelExpo. This educational museum is an initiative of Brussels Environment. Young people learned how to care for the city and the climate. The pupils' work was exhibited there. The pupils visited BelExpo and viewed the work exhibited by the other classes.
Our partners: BelExpo | Innoviris
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