It was within the scope of the ODDdience  2030 Project, an Erasmus+ KA2 Programme, which took place between the 13^th and 17^th of November 2023, in Bordeaux, France, that we experienced a breathtaking moment in the dune of Pilat.

The Portuguese team from the Albufeira School Cluster was formed by Ilena Gonçalves (Director of the School Cluster), Maria Ascensão Marrachinho (Project Coordinator of the School Cluster), Naseema Saiyad (Coordinator of the ODDience project), and Daniel Vaqueiro (Coordinator of the subject of Citizenship).

During the mobility week we had the opportunity to carry out several activities on the SDGs and the 21^st century skills, to participate in teacher training, as well as visiting Île Nouvelle in Garone and the Pilat Dune.

We would like to highlight the visit to the dune of Pilat, the tallest sand dune in Europe, located in the Arcachon Bay area, with its forest-dune-ocean landscape that we greatly appreciated.

Climbing the 100m of the dune was a real challenge for all of us, quite radical, having been a real fight against the wind making the moment unique and unlike any we’ve ever experienced.

The visit was guided by the project’s partner, the association “Terre et Océan” and made us understand the importance of this area, its exceptional extension, associated to its 40 centuries of history.

The Pilat dune also stands out for its exceptional beauty and diversity of its natural environment. The Pilat dune is located between the ocean and the forest, we learned that it moves 1 to 5 m per year to the east, under the influence of prevailing winds and tides.

Although we have dunes in our region of the Algarve, in Portugal, they are nothing compared to the size and grandeur of this dune that we visited, which makes this place unique and breathtaking.

My love for the rivers made this day all the more special as we were taken on a Cruise for an environment experience from Bordeaux to Ile Nouvelle.

Water and plankton samples from the Burdigala pontoon were collected and with immense excitement I boarded the Burdigala boat right from the bank of the Garonne.

We navigated from Bordeaux to Ile Nouvelle with interactive workshops. Entire day we were engaged in activities which revolved around the Garonne river. We learnt about the history of the river, its course, estuaries, and the impact of floods.

Through experiential learning the impact of rivers in our lives and how we can work towards safeguarding them for the future generations was imbibed.

They have played a central role in human civilizations throughout history. Ancient civilizations flourished along the banks of rivers harnessing the fertile soil and abundant water for agriculture.Their importance in sustaining life cannot be overstated, as they play a pivotal role in providing water, supporting biodiversity, and fostering human civilizations. It is our collective responsibility to recognize the significance of rivers and actively work towards safeguarding these vital natural resources. This thought resonated and made a lasting impression on my mind.

I realised that as stewards of the planet, we need to take the responsibility to adopt sustainable practices, enforce regulations, and invest in conservation efforts to protect our rivers. By promoting sustainable practices, enforcing environmental regulations, and fostering a global commitment to river conservation, we can ensure that these vital ecosystems continue to thrive for generations to come.

Students can play a vital role in creating awareness for river rejuvenation projects by joining hands with the civic authorities.

We came from Finland, Vantaa to Bordeaux not knowing anybody.

We had spoken on-line a few times and I had been invited to the project not long ago, so I didn’t have a too clear of an idea about the project and how it is going to work.

During the kick-off week we got to know each other much better. Through varied activities we saw different sides of others and no doubt showed many details of ourselves.

We went to see places, on river Garonne and dune du Pilat. We did activities, gathering and examining samples from the water, improvisation, speaking, problem solving in an escape game. At the same time we learned about the environment and the situation of the globe and people on this globe.

Very humble. And this is why I am excited and looking forward to our next steps.

The people have brought our planet into the situation where it currently is – the climat is changing rapidly which has an impact on everything that lives. We need to start doing things very differently. There are millions and millions of people who need to understand the urgency right now.

The challenge lies in the difficulty of making a deep impact on other people’s ways of thinking and acting. Changing our and others’ values. The task is enormous. Should we do something big as human kind, us billions  on all five continents, the rich and the poor? That would not be possible, and it would not work. Instead there should be done lots of small things on community levels, on individual levels. The idea of numerous individual deeds in the right direction sounds doable and comprehensible. It gives hope, I can do something. I can speak to others and I can be an example.

On one workshop we did improvisation.

We started from our names and presented ourselves with our name and a gesture, then we called each other with the name and gesture, we trusted each other, closed our eyes and were led through the room by the other, we invented new professions and spoke for them, we wrote poems and read them to others using different voices and energies. We made different impacts on others using not just words but our bodies and our energy.

What I learned from this workshop was that words are not enough. The words need to be heard and they need to have an impact on the listener. They need to be true, credible, important. Scientists often trust in facts and hope that the truth will be seen anyway. Sadly that is not the case.

People hear what they want to hear, that we know. Our message should not be from doom’s day telling that all is lost. Because it isn’t, we can do things differently. Now we need to learn to use our voice and start changing things. Us teachers need to give tools to our students for them to learn how to think and act for their future.

People will remember and understand things that are worth noticing and that awake emotions. This needs to be remembered when we try to make a change for the better, for the sake of our planet.

I participate in the Oddience2030 kickoff meeting from the other side of the Atlantic, while partners gather in Bordeaux France, I am driving towards Pensacola, Florida USA to meet Healthy Gulf climate trainer Christian and have a dialogue around the opportunities of teaching through climate change. 

These thoughts are part of the reflection process as I listen to Christian and allow a deeper consideration of how we teach through climate change, and I am attempting to follow the place-based learning in Bordeaux via the WhatsApp project group.

Sustainable starts with the inner process of the teacher…. “bending the beam of attention toward oneself”, Otto Scharmer (MIT, U-school). 

When it comes to teaching with and through climate change as facilitators, to balance economical (financial)  considerations and ethical (social) implications as a thinking process and skill. Reimagining teaching with ethics as part of highly critical and scientific thinking if we consider “this generation will use science for everyday decision making, more than any generation before them in their everyday life choices” (Lonka,2018). 

I am also once more returning to the idea that teaching with 21st-century skills serves the vision of education for “citizens able to make democratic decisions with respect to humans and more than humans rights”.

Christian, invites a reflection on the biophilia “hypothesis suggests that humans possess an innate tendency to seek connections with nature and other forms of life”, a term proposed by Edward O. Wilson. Christian then self-inquires how “could we connect people to local, regional ecosystems? “Here, people interact a lot with fishing and hunting this is what they have been doing for generations”. My mind runs hence to the picture I added here from the teachers’ place-based learning in Bordeaux as I and Christian speak, to how teachers from different parts of the world together with the locals, experience the gulf area being changed.

Picture shared from teachers’ place-based learning, in Bordeaux Nov 2024.

Back to Christian, and Pensacola Gulf, he mentions local (adult) people interacting with the environment, and nature daily, for them, it is easy to see changes in nature, to integrate as part of climate learning, they are “good ecology students”. Yet is there a way to connect the young people, if they were born in what is called a “shifted baseline”, if you do not have a memory of how amazing the coral reef that now is 98% dead was, or how this fish used to be this big and now the impact on oneself when looking at “the downsizing”, are you going to feel and raise to the urgency? Is this a barrier to learning?

There is  the opportunity to teach with SDGs and 21st century skills, and practice integrative leadership skills as part of decision-making in the classroom, “holding both the urgency and the patience” ( Dr. Linda Hill, Harvard University).

As most of the issues will not be solved during our and young people’s human time, we have the opportunity to teach with human(e) muscle or what the UN agenda calls Inner Development Goals together with Sustainable Development Goals.