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IST‐SOLL
Project: Green Sustainable Schoolyards (IVN)
IVN aims to promote green and sustainable schoolyards by actively involving primary school children and their parents. At the moment, this involvement mainly takes place through offline methods such as workshops, information materials, and short-term projects.
Parents are informed about sustainability initiatives but often lack clear guidance on how to actively contribute. Teachers experience time pressure and find it difficult to search for outdoor activities that fit the curriculum, season, space, and materials.
There is no central digital platform where ideas, activities, and experiences related to sustainable schoolyards are collected and shared.
The desired situation is an ICT solution in which parents are the primary users. Parents can independently find ready-to-use outdoor activities and lead small sustainability projects together with their children.
The platform offers:
- Clear instructions for parents
- A shared activity library with filters (age, season, space, materials)
- A community space for sharing experiences and ratings
Teachers are informed about activities but do not actively use the platform. This setup is intended to reduce teacher workload and stimulate parental ownership.
During discussions with the stakeholder, the following feedback was given:
- Teachers should be the primary target group, as they are responsible for educational content and classroom integration.
- Parents play an important supporting role but should not be expected to initiate projects independently.
- The solution should primarily support educational use, with participation from parents and children.
- Reducing the teacher’s role too much does not align with IVN’s educational mission.
IVN aims to encourage green and sustainable schoolyards through educational and participatory activities involving children, teachers, and parents. Currently, teachers experience difficulty finding and adapting outdoor activities due to limited time and fragmented resources.
Parents are willing to help but lack clear, accessible instructions on how to support school-led initiatives. Existing knowledge, lesson ideas, and experiences are spread across different schools and individuals, with no central place to store or reuse them.
As a result, outdoor sustainability activities are often ad hoc, difficult to repeat, and not structurally embedded in education.
The desired situation is an ICT solution where teachers are the primary users, supported by parents and children.
In this situation:
- Teachers can find and adapt suitable outdoor activities within three minutes
- Activities are categorized by age group, season, space, and materials
- Parents receive clear, ready-to-use instructions to support or lead small tasks under teacher guidance
- A shared digital library allows users to rate activities and share experiences
- A community platform enables schools, teachers, and parents to learn from each other
This solution strengthens educational value, reduces teacher workload, and increases meaningful participation from parents and children, aligning with IVN’s goals.