Integrating Circular Economy Concepts in School Programmes

The established economic practices are dominated by the linear process based on a “take-make-use-dispose” model, having a high cost from an economic, social and environmental point of view. To adopt sustainable strategies with respect to finite resources, and of course to the climate change, it is essential to move towards an alternative model, that can decrease the risk of resource scarcity, responding the unprecedented climate challenges. Thus, Europe is working on the transition towards Circular Economy (CE). But how can the CE key concepts be successfully introduced in high schools, where they are rarely part of curricula? There is a wide range of topics within the theme of circular economy suitable to involve students in thoughtful discussions about habits of consumption, and engage them in concrete actions and in communication work towards society. This is the aim of the European project, Raw Matters Ambassadors @Schools (RM@Schools) which has developed many tools in order to support the introduction of some of the CE key concepts at school and to foster students’ interest in science, technology and sustainability. These tools are based on different educational approaches such as gamification and learning by doing and cover a multitude of fields like economy, geology, chemistry, technology, environment, etc. They are are freely available on the e-learning platform of RM@Schools project