KURS 21 "Schools manage future", funded by the German Foundation for the Environment is an educational project which aims at bringing schools and companies together in learning partnerships for sustainable development.
Based on close-to-reality co-operation with companies these learning partnerships (each with one school and one company) introduce innovative topics and methods to the classrooms.
KURS 21 is projected as a nation-wide sustainability dialogue between schools and companies. Its target groups are medium sized companies of different trade and students of different school forms (up from the age of ten). Greater Wuppertal is the model region where 12 learning partnerships have already been established and so have over 100 learning partnerships in Baden-Württemberg, Saxony and Thuringia up to now.
The Wuppertal Institute provides four field-tested KURS 21 learning modules in order to prepare the co-operation between students and companies and to introduce the relatively new topic to the teaching staff:
- Learning module 1 "Sustainable development" is based on a general social and individual approach to sustainability.
- Learning module 2 "Products, services and sustainability" introduces the business side of a company with its products and services, examines sustainability aspects of the relevant company alongside the product change and investigates optimisation possibilities.
- Learning module 3 "Companies and Sustainability" explores companies under the aspect of sustainability. Students develop economical, organisational, ecological and social aspects of business management.
- Learning module 4 "Companies in a world of globalisation" gives an overview of the complexity of globalisation and its influence on companies, in particular in regard to employment. Further aspects to discuss in the context of sustainability and globalisation are regional competitiveness, multinational companies and the future of employment.
The described learning modules as well as further information about the didactic principles of the learning matter, glossary and documentation material about selected activities from the learning partnerships in Wuppertal are available at www.kurs-21.de.
The materials are also provided on the Internet site of the NRW education server together with a lot of facilities and suggestions about the topic "School-Economy-Sustainability".