Sustainability Trail

Funding: Land Steiermark
Amount of funding: € 14.000
Duration: 09/2007 – 04/2008 
Lead partner: RCE Graz-Styria
Partners: Fun House - Jugendzentrum Trofaiach, Stadtgemeinde Trofaiach, FA 6A Landesjugendreferat Steiermark
Projekt lead: Prof. Dr. Clemens Mader 

Description:
Under the guiding hand of the RCE Graz-Styria young people of the youth centre „Fun House“, which is located in the city of Trofaiach, developed together with students of Environmental System Sciences at the University of Graz an educational trail under the topic of “sustainable development”. This trail consists of several plates that were installed in Trofaiach after the project. During four workshops the young people together with the students discussed themes like climate change, poverty, energy consumption and water use in context with sustainable development. As a part of the workshops options were shown, how everyone could involve sustainability in their daily routine, for instance through energy saving or consumption of regional products. The university students were challenged to put their theoretical knowledge into practice. Therefore an exchange of knowledge between teenagers and students evolved as they worked together on both the contents and the creation of the educational plates. Everyone interested can visit the Sustainability Trail at the “Panoramaweg“ in Trofaiach for free at any time.

The Sustainability Trail was developed in 2008 through a cooperation of the RCE Graz-Styria, the University of Graz, the municipality of Trofaiach, the youth centre of Trofaiach and the “FA 6A/Landesjugendreferat” of Styria.

The Sustainability Trail was recognised by the Austrian UNESCO commission as an official project of the UN Decade “Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014“ – certificate and report in newspaper.

Plates of the sustainability trail (for download; in German language):

1. Start panel
2. Climate change
3. Food consumption
4. Energy consumption
5. Water resources
6. Poverty eradication
7. Education
8. Millennium Development Goals