Decisiveness

Present the students with dilemmas related to social justice, peace and conflict or institution building. For example, to address homelessness: Should we provide a shelter away from the city which hides the problem, or do we allow people to sleep rough in shop doorways? This raises awareness of the issue. The students should identify the course of action they would take in the given dilemmas and provide a rationale explaining their decision in each case.

Learners in groups are asked to enter in the Environmental Justice Atlas and look for socio-environmental conflicts around biodiversity. They are asked to choose one, and gather the information and arguments of each side of the conflict (i.e. company extracting natural resource, government, local community and activist, foreign NGOs, etc.). Each member of the group takes the role of an actor and analyses the arguments of this actor, building a SWOT analysis grid (Strengths; Weaknesses; Opportunities; Threats). The groups present their analysis to the class.

Learners are then asked to produce a compromise solution from the perspective of their actor in the role-play. These solutions are discussed among the members of the group to make them stronger: what negative impacts are reduced? What potential benefits? How to hold accountability?

Finally, the whole group of learners assesses the solutions presented in terms of their credibility and plausibility. For this assessment, the barometer activity will be applied, in which learners distribute physically in the space according to their degree of agreement.

Each group will then go to the “Classroom Environmental Justice Court” to defend their solution to one of the courtrooms formed by fellow classmates (e.g. another group working on a different conflict). Then the “Classroom Environmental Justice Court”, after hearing all the stakeholders will have to take a decision and justify why it has taken that decision.

Theatre forum method

• In groups of 3-4, role-play a short scene illustrating a problem related to life under water (eg. loss of submarine biodiversity and the impact on a group of humans).
• They start playing it a second time, asking anybody from the rest of the group to intervene whenever someone has an idea about how the situation could end up differently if influenced in a certain way. Anybody can step up (usually one person at a time) and take the role of one of the actors. The others have to adapt to what the new person brings in. After a while, the teacher stops the process and asks the person that has intervened if she/he is satisfied with how things have evolved.
• The play starts again from where it has been changed, as it was the first time, and another person can step in, and the group has to adapt to this new intervention.

After 2-4 interventions, a discussion takes place on what happened and what suggestions were made. Then discuss what could/should happen.

Small groups each study a different real-life problem-based scenario and try to come up with at least six different solutions/ways forward.
Then for each solution consider which values underpin it and which might be compromised.
Whole group, discuss solutions proposed and the related values.

Students create a future me: Define your role and how it could look like in 30 years from now and ask yourself the following questions:

• How can you actively influence decision-making processes as a consumer?
• How can you actively participate and evaluate these processes?

A scenario is presented, for describing the problem in Koh Pich a small island in Cambodia, where the Government in 2004 decided to remove from the island the 134 agricultural families aiming to transform the natural island to a free trade centre, attracting multinational companies to invest on it. The discussion of the scenario is based on issues like changing the use of land and the social, economic, ecological consequences of this change; the destruction of professional groups, the uprooting of populations, the disruption of social cohesion.

When the issue is discussed in depth, using various sources of information, the group is divided in small groups taking different roles:

• The local population
• The representatives of the Government
• The Investors
• The representatives of the environmental parties
• The representatives of Mass Media

Each group justifies its opinion and uses various resources of information to build their arguments. Role-play is expected to reveal all the different aspects of the issue, their consequences and impacts, aiming to reach a decision that will ensure the sustainability of the island and the population.

Intro

Greta Thunberg, Jeppe Bijker (sailing from Holland to the climate summit in Chili), Eva Dijkema (sailing with him; ProRail advisor on SD), Rosa Hofgärtner (also sailing; television documentary maker on SD), Anuna de Wever, Adélaïde Charlier and Kyta Gantois (Belgian climate activists), Won Smolbag (Vanuatu, climate activist)… All of them might be great examples of young people who meet the aim as described above.

Reflection

Ask students to think about themselves. Do they have an example from their personal or professional life that might demonstrate positive decision making? Ask them to write it down in a ‘tweet’.

Discussion

Presentation of some ‘tweets’; other students are challenged to mention the parts of the tweet that show the skill. Only positive remarks please!

Reflection

Ask students to reflect on what they need to increase this skill within themselves

Personal aims

Ask students to come up with a personal development plan that helps them develop this skill.

Set the class a design task and ask them to work in groups to come up new designs for a familiar product e.g. smart phone, car or bicycle.

Groups present their designs to the rest of the class.

During the presentations, the rest of the class ‘grade’ them according to how sustainable, ethical, inclusive and effective they are.

At the end, the class votes for the best design.

Individually, identify 2 decisions that you have made as a worker and/or consumer – one that you consider good/successful and one that did not go so well. Reflect on these decisions and identify what helped you make them and what the alternative choices were. Then encourage learners to think about decision-making process and how this can be implemented taking gender issues into consideration. Based on this analysis, make a list of what you think helps people make good decisions (e.g. quality of information, time available, prior experience, advice from others).

Students are divided into three groups to work on different scenarios and reveal their implications. One group works with the business as usual scenario (energy production and consumption follow the same trends as today). Another group works with a scenario based on the spread of solar energy in which consumption remains the same as today, while the third group works with a scenario in which energy consumption is considerably reduced. The three groups present findings and discuss together what would be the best scenario and route to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to avoid the 2ºC temperature increase by 2100.

Students then think of three steps/decisions to make in order to work towards this scenario. Discuss why this step and no other? What are the values underpinning this decision? Are there any dilemmas embedded in this step?