Shaping the future together across generations – myclimate launches ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’

With ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’, myclimate has introduced a new educational programme. The programme is available immediately and offers children and young people in grades 5 to 9 (GB equivalent: years 7 to 11) the opportunity to work on the topics of climate and energy in an action- and solution-oriented way. The focus is on practical project work, shaping a climate-friendly future world and experiencing self-efficacy. A new element is the intergenerational approach, which is put into practice through the involvement of climate grandparents and volunteers from companies.

‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’ offers school classes the opportunity to develop their own projects that contribute to a climate-friendly future. The programme is structured such that the children and young people experience their own self-efficacy in a joyful way through practical project work. The offer is anchored in Curriculum 21 and designed to be interdisciplinary. The school classes are supported by myclimate education experts and now also by volunteers.

How does ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’ work specifically?

Primary school classes (fifth or sixth grade) and secondary school students experience the project ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’ by spending a project day together. In the morning, the classes deal with the topics of energy and climate, the greenhouse effect and climate protection with the help of a playful learning circuit and a poster on which visions of a climate-friendly society and economy can be interactively created. The students then get active themselves with their own class project.

Project work is therefore a key component of the concept, because it enables the young people to experience their self-efficacy. This provides another boost to motivation. The projects are also visibly implemented and documented in the school building. For schools, participation is accompanied by a contribution towards costs of 50 Swiss francs per class. Teachers are supported by the expert team of ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers’ and, in a new development, also by volunteers. Starting in spring 2022, further training will also be offered for interested teachers on the topic of project-based climate education. To accompany this, we will provide a learning platform with all the teaching materials and a lot more besides.

Registration for school classes

‘Energy and Climate Pioneers’ now with ‘(Corporate) Volunteering’

Employees of local companies, as well as committed ‘climate grandparents’ can slip into the assistant role of myclimate climate experts for a day. These volunteers are trained in advance by myclimate on a new online learning platform and prepared for their assignment. On the day of the assignment, they support the young people, for example, with the knowledge check in the learning circuit and with project design and planning. In the process, they experience first-hand how children and young people envision a climate-friendly future and what contribution they want to make to it. The volunteers also learn a lot thanks to the substantiated information on climate protection and their own engagement in the project. The programme is primarily aimed at local or regionally rooted companies that want to make a local contribution to climate protection.

More information on (corporate) volunteering

 ‘Participation should equally lead to creative solutions for more climate protection and to positive vibes in the school building. All students, regardless of their level of learning, can express their individual strengths and ideas in the project work. Through their tangible results, the children become motivated when they realise the concrete scope for action they have to help shape their future,’ says Anita von Däniken, the responsible project manager at myclimate, describing the intention of the project.

‘Public-private partnership’ for the evolution of a long-standing successful project

For ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’, myclimate has succeeded in building a solid and strong ‘public-private partnership’ with representatives of the public sector, foundations, lottery funds and the private sector. myclimate would therefore like to thank EnergieSchweiz and UBS, as well as the 3FO Foundation, the Charitable Fund of the Canton of Zurich, the Cultural Foundation of the Canton of St. Gallen, Huber+Suhner, and the Department of Primary Education of the Canton of Lucerne for their valuable support in terms of content and funding.

‘Energy and Climate Pioneers 2.0’ is a further development of the popular school education project ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers’. This was launched in 2010 as an initiative by Swisscom and its partners at that time, Solar Impulse, EnergieSchweiz and myclimate. As part of ‘Energy and Climate Pioneers’, more than 24,000 schoolchildren in German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland and in Ticino have implemented more than 1100 practical projects. Among other things, bicycle shopping services were offered, experiments were conducted with renewable energies, and climate-friendly lunch menus were cooked and served together with restaurant chefs.

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