Author: Paula Ratava Find more info about this presentation: https://openbadgefactory.com/en/webinar/climate-badges-for-repairing-the-schools/

1. Climate Badges for Repairing the
Schools
OBF Academy webinars
28.2.2023
Paula Ratava, Educational and Cultural Services of Oulu, Finland

2. Program
1. Background for Climate
Badges
2. The Repair Manual for
Schools
3. Climate Badges
4. Examples from schools
5. Conclusion

3. • How many technological gadgets do you really need in
your school?
• What can you eat in a carbon-neutral school?
• Do you see signs of a changing world in your school?
• Is it fair to fly on a school trip?
• Is the climate action in your school effective?
• What’s your personal climate ”super power”? What are
your school community’s talents?
• Is it allowed to talk about climate change in your
school?
• Do you know the energy source of your school?
• Who has the most responsibility in your school in
climate issues?
Photos: ©Harri Tarvainen / Repair Manual For Schools

4. Who are we?
• Paula Ratava
• Environmental Educator, Teacher (Biology, Geography,
languages)
• Environmental specialist
• Advisory Teacher for Sustainable Future
• Project coordinator
• Vilma Nikkanen
• Project worker
• Biology and Geography Teacher
• Jussi Tomberg
• Senior Advisor for Sustainability
• Biology and Geography Teacher
• Project manager
During the years 2019-2021 Miika Siironen and 2020-2022
Inka Karvonen.
27.2.2023
”We can make a better
future together.”
”Saving the world
should also be fun.”
”A different future
doesn’t have to be
worse!"

5. Our goal is to raise
and educate ecosocial
individuals, who want
to create a sustainable
future for themselves,
others and the whole
planet.

6. Projects
• Climate change in upper secondary schools! (2019-
2021)
• Teacher network and learning materials
• Climate online courses
• Climate Youth Panel
• Co-operation with universities
• Climate upper secondary schools (2021-2022)
• Repair Manual for Schools
• Carbon-Neutrality Road Map for Schools
• Carbon-Footprint Calculator for Schools
• Learning Stream – the model for sustainability
education in Oulu (2023-2024)
• Projects funded by the National Agency for
Education and the city of Oulu

7. Why climate projects?
• How could we feel more
hopeful and empowered for
climate action?
• What are the most effective
ways to reduce emissions in
schools?
• Do we even know what’s going
on in our schools?
• How could we do climate
action together?
Realistic hope, on the other hand, is built only after
one has faced different challenges in the world, but
despite seeing these challenges, is able to believe in
one's own influence (Pihkala 2017;Hicks 2014;Orr
2009).

8. Sustainable
development can be
considered the most
important general
or generic
competence of
future working life.
Finnish National Agency for
Education, 2019.

9. Why Repair Manual for
Schools and Climate
Badges?
• Solutions and realistic hope
• Strengths and own role in climate
action
• Values and well-being
• The community as the most
empowering level of action
• Schools as the force to change the
society
• Future holds several possibilities

10. • A global and vaste issue chopped in
reasonable pieces
• Exercices and background
information
• Supports new curricula in Finland:
future skills, co-
operation,interdisciplinary studies,
problem solving, creativity...
• A more holistic approach to climate
education
Why Repair Manual for
Schools and Climate
Badges?

11. Program
1. Background for Climate
Badges
2. The Repair Manual for
Schools
3. Climate Badges
4. Examples from schools
5. Conclusion

12. • The result of the project Ilmastolukiot
(Climate upper secondary schools)
• A pedagogical online environment for
reaching carbon-neutrality in schools
• A manual for helping the schools in
climate action
• A manual for recognizing and acquiring
climate know-how as an individual and
as a community
What is the Repair
Manual for Schools?

13. What does the manual
include?
1. School Climate Expert -exercises
• 42 Climate exercises
= Digital Learning Badges for Students (OBF)
2. A Road Map for Schools for Carbon-neutrality
• 4 Digital Learning Badges for School
Communities (OBF)
• Vision, Current State, Routes –> the Road Map
3. Carbon Footprint Calculator for Schools
4. A 100-page guide for schools

15. Themes for repairing the
school
• Food
• Transport
• Infrastructure
• Attitude
• Climate justice in schools
• School mission
• Responsibilities in school
• Emotions and needs
• Constructive dialogue
• Past and future

16. The themes food, transport
and infrastructure have
badges of:
• Background information
• Learning from history and from visions
• Estimations and calculations of the current state of
emissions
• The diversity of schools
• Brainstorming ideas about climate action and
implementing them

17. Program
1. Background for Climate
Badges
2. The Repair Manual for
Schools
3. Climate Badges
4. Examples from schools
5. Conclusion

18. Why Open Badge Factory
badges?
For students:
• Badges are a new way in Finnish upper secondary
schools to show your know-how.
• There’s a possibility to use badges in applications for
work or for school.
• Climate know-how is needed in all sectors.
• Gamification can help in motivation.
For school communities:
• Making decisions together for the carbon-neutral
school.
• Schools can show their commitment with badges for
climate action in city strategies or global goals.
• School’s commitment with badges gives hope for
youth: adults are serious with climate crisis.

19. Climate Badges for students
To a student:
• Get to know to the theme
• Show your existing know-how or acquire new with the
help of our exercises
• Fill the application and get a climate badge
• Use the badge in job or school applications
To a teacher:
• Use exercises in your lessons, as a homework or in co-
operation with other teachers
• Approve climate badge applications for individual
students or for the whole class at the same time
• Pass the ideas of climate action to the road map work
group and the principal

20. Climate Badges for school
communities
• Creating a Road Map consists of four organization
Badges (Open Badge Factory).
1. Vision
2. Current State
3. Routes
4. Road Map
• Made together with the principal, teachers,
students, other staff, stakeholders etc.

21. What’s your
school’s
route for a
carbon-
neutral
future?

22. Materials in English?
• So far most of the materials are only in Finnish
• The original website is in English, but the
Finnish pages have been updated and are
different from the English website. It has a
search engine for filtering
• school subjects
• difficulty
• need for exercise
• theme
• Translations coming later for all the materials,
like the badge exercises, the calculator, the
handbook, tutorial videos etc.

23. Program
1. Background for Climate
Badges
2. The Repair Manual for
Schools
3. Climate Badges
4. Examples from schools
5. Conclusion

24. Case Haukiputaan
lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for Students:
• One Climate Badge in every school subject per year
• In three years, students will have a wide
understanding of climate issues in school
• Testing Climate Badges for School Communities
• Calculating emissions for the Road Map
• School lunch and transport
• Carbon Footprint Calculator for Schools
• Workshops for teachers and students

25. Case Laanilan lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for School Communities
• Visioning the carbon-neutral future together
with students, teachers and the principal
• Estimating the current state of school’s climate
action
• Workshops about climate emotions and climate
action

26. Case Kuusamon lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for Students
• Course for students: making badges
together in classes
• Investigating the school
• Testing Climate Badges for School
Communities
• Visioning the future together

27. Case Raudaskylän lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for School
Communities
• Constructive dialogues (Time out –
dialogue) for the whole school
• Visioning the future of the school
• Estimating the current state of the
school

28. Case Iin lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for School
Communities
• Workshops for students for
estimating the current state of the
school
• Workshops for teachers and
principals for estimating the current
state of the school

29. Case Oulun Suomalaisen
Yhteiskoulun lukio
• Testing Climate Badges for School
Communities
• Workshops for teachers for choosing
the badges for classes
• Testing Climate Badges for Students
• Workshops for teachers and
principals for estimating the current
state of the school

30. Climate Badge No. 5:
Lunch Carbon Footprint
• What is the carbon footprint of your
school lunch?
• In this task, we will learn about the
emissions of the main materials of your
school food.
• We will compare the carbon footprint of
three different meals.
• Suitable for making research in the
school “micro climate” and to support
functionality in a lesson. The exercise can
also be used as a pair or group work.

31. Climate Badge No. 14:
Your Way to School
• How much emissions does your
school commute produce?
• In this task, we will compare the
emissions of the different ways of
going to school. We will also learn the
scale of emissions.
• Suitable for making research in the
school “micro climate” and to
support functionality in a lesson. The
exercise can be used as a pair or
group work.

32. Climate Badge No. 24:
Purchase Minimum For
the Class
• How much gadgets, furniture and other stuff
is there in your class?
• Choose three things and estimate: How much
is it used? Is it really necessary? How much
energy does it consume? How is it recycled?...
• In this task, we will find out how the school
purchases influence the school emissions.
• Suitable for making research in the school
“micro climate” and to support functionality
in a lesson. The exercise can be used as a pair
or group work.

33. Climate Badge No. 35:
The best school in
dialogue
• Is your school good in dialogue?
• Design a conversation of a subject
concerning climate. Use the “time
out” dialogue.
• In this task, we will learn how to
have a constructive dialogue.
• The exercise can be used as a
homework or as a pair or group
work.

34. Climate Badge No. 9 and
No. 10: Food Choises &
Food Actions
• At the end of Food, Transport and
Infrastructure themes there are badges
for
• brainstorming climate actions for your
school
• choosing a climate action for your school
and making a plan for it
• The badge No. 38: implementation of
climate action
• Other climate action plans are assembled
and available to use for everyone in
school

35. Program
1. Background for Climate
Badges
2. The Repair Manual for
Schools
3. Climate Badges
4. Examples from schools
5. Conclusion

36. Climate Badges have
helped in:
• Recognizing our own strengths and
skills – our own route for carbon
neutrality!
• Finding the nearest community to do
climate action.
• Understanding the complexity and
scale of climate issues.
• Being un important part of wider
processes.
• Diversifying climate education to be
included in all school subjects.
• Understanding that climate-friendly
future can also bring us well-being.

37. Challenges
• Teachers and students have tested our Badges
well, but it’s not yet common to use them in job
or school applications.
• Upper secondary school students and teachers
are very busy and it’s hard to start with new
systems, like OBF. They prefer using just
exercises.
• These badges were first made to be used mostly
online (during 2020-2021), but now they need
adjusting to being used more in lessons.
• School communities need our help for organizing
workshops for them because they feel that they
don’t know enough about climate issues.

38. In summary:
While students, teachers
and school communities
make exercises and acquire
badges, at the same time
they repair their:
• Teaching
• Structures
• Management
• School culture
Road Map
Exercises
Calculator

39. What’s next?
• Climate upper secondary schools are
now a part of the Learning Stream for
Sustainable Future
• Three main themes:
• Nature education
• Nature connectedness
• Empathy
• Circular economy education
• The next level of action
• Focus on reducing
• Climate education
• The power of community
• Realistic hope

41. The Sustainable Future Learning Stream is
about hope and working together. It is moving
from a realistic picture of the situation towards
a desirable future.

42. • Perhaps in the future we’ll also
have Nature Badges and Circular
Economy Badges. And Badges for
teachers too...

43. Some theories and websites
• Repair Manual For Schools https://koulunkorjausopas.fi/en/
• The Finnish National Agency for Education, Guide on sustainable development:
https://www.oph.fi/en/sustainable-future
• JYU.Wisdom Community: Planetary Well-being
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00899-3?proof=t
• Arto O. Salonen: An Ecosocial Approach to Well-Being:
https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/4475/447544537003.pdf
• Tolppanen, Aarnio-Linnanvuori, Cantell & Lehtonen. The Bicycle Model on Holistic
Climate Change Education
https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/fi/publications/bicycle-model-on-climate-change-
education-presenting-and-evaluati, https://www.sirene.fi/blog/bicycle-model-on-
climate-change-education/
• BIOS Research Unit: Ecological reconstruction : https://eco.bios.fi/
• Pinja Sipari: Teacher’s climate guide https://teachers-climate-guide.fi/
• Panu Pihkala: Eco-anxiety and hope http://ecoanxietyandhope.blogspot.com/

44. How could you strengthen the sources of
climate hope in your school or organization?
Perhaps through climate badges?

45. Paula Ratava
paula.ratava@ouka.fi
+358 40 593 1963
Facebook and Instagram: @Opinvirta
(Learning Stream)
”Hope is a verb with its shirtsleeves rolled up.” David Orr.
Thank you! Any questions?