Enabling the provision of tailored training to students in order to help them become more aware as consumers in future
The Consumer classroom is an online network for teachers which brings together an extensive library of educational resources which are relevant for consumers from across Europe. The platform provides teachers with a series of suggestions, advice and tools which support them while teaching students how to be responsible consumers
The challenge
The education resources on sustainable consumption which are relevant to young students are scattered and need to be shared among the teachers. Young students will have the opportunity to start inter-disciplinary and inter-school projects, which can further their education on sustainable consumption topics.
The innovation
www.consumerclassroom.eu community portal has been set up with a public grant funding for demonstration and commercial exploitation provided by the Directorate of Health and Consumers of the European Commission. The portal provides ready-to-use teaching resources on a wide range of consumer education topics, from sustainable consumption to financial literacy. The teacher can join this web community of teachers that extends throughout Europe and beyond and collaborate with their students in developing inter-school multi-disciplinary projects about conscious consumption. The teachers can offer themselves as consumer education experts on the website. The website is suitable for students aged 12-18 years but open to anyone willing to contribute.
Why did it work?
Consumer classroom is a resource sharing portal for consumer education. It has been created to empower students between the ages of 12 and 18 years for responsible consumption decisions in the future. Teachers teaching this age group are offered the latest community building web tools such as a lesson builder, forums and live chats. With the help of these tools the teachers can share materials with their students, organise inter-school, multi-disciplinary projects, and initiate an exchange of views with other students from Europe and beyond.
Further deployment
The consumer classroom is very helpful tool for teachers in European secondary schools and allows them to create ready-to-use lessons to teach their students about topics relating to consumer education. The portal provides an example of how online networking can be used to empower the educational community with innovative teaching tools. There is significant potential for the replication of this initiation in other regions of the world. The maturity of consumer classroom good practice is estimated to be 9 on the GML scale.
