Bildung Climate School

What if you could have the gap year experience, without the gap year? Bildung Climate School is a unique intensive, immersive personal and community development experience combining MBO, HBO and university students and teachers. Here, you'll find your purpose, solve real-world problems, gain practical sustainability skills, and take part in a paid internship helping companies with sustainability challenges. Check out our video here.

Do you feel frustrated by the state of the world, but not sure what to do about it? Would you like to gain personal resilience, meet like-minded people, and build solutions with your head, heart and hands, but don’t have time or money for a gap year? Would you like work experience in sustainability, but don’t know where to start?
If yes, the Bildung Climate School (BCS) is for you! It's the gap year experience, without the gap year. You’ll come out with a sense of purpose, agency, community and a toolkit of skills to work towards a more sustainable future. BCS is the first inclusive Minor in the Netherlands that brings MBO (vocational), HBO (applied sciences) and university students together to work with real companies to address sustainability challenges in Rotterdam.

You’ll work in five immersive tracks:

1. The Bildung Track: you will develop your personal agency, group resilience and societal engagement through our unique blend of artistic, scientific and practical workshops. You’ll get personalised Bildung workshops from some of the best people in their field - successful sustainability entrepreneurs, professional dancers, biodiversity experts, sustainability economists, mindfulness coaches, folk and jazz artists… get inspired, challenge yourself, (re)connect with your body, your heart and your mind, find your purpose as an agent of change. There will be 2 Bildung workshops per week.

2. The Sustainability Track: we’re going to need to (re)learn to work with our hands to live more sustainable lives. You’ll get hands on experiences in practical skills like vegetarian cooking, sewing, repairing, recognising edible plants in the wild, recycling waste into products etc. in partnership with exciting sustainability ventures in Rotterdam. There will be 1 sustainability workshop per week.

3. The Internship Track: In a group of 4-5 students (mixed across MBO, HBO and university) you will be working 6-8 hours per week with a company that is struggling with a sustainability challenge. The best part? These are paid internships! You will work 1 day per week on your internship.

4. The Project Track: You'll bring your company’s sustainability challenge into the classroom and design a fashion piece and a campaign for them, featured in a live show in Rotterdam. Fashion is one of the least sustainable industries on Earth - by re-using old materials to make wearable art you’ll learn sewing, team work, project management, experience the joy of creating something real, and tell the world fashion doesn’t have to destroy the planet! No sewing experience required, we’re partnered with a local fashion school to give you the training you’ll need! Don’t feel like sewing? There’s 4-5 team members per group, including fashion students who can design and sew clothes. You can learn from them while focusing on the campaign, make a movie, a social media plan etc. It’s about tapping into everybody’s strengths, building diverse teams and finding what works for you. There will be 2 project work sessions per week.

5. The Reflection Track: with such an immersive program, it’s important to take stock of what you’ve learned. The reflection track will use guided, embodied workshops with techniques like mindfulness, boxing, art and journalling to help you make sense of your journey and define your purpose. There will be 1 reflection session per week.

1. Develop and reflect on self-awareness, group belonging and sustainable citizenship (socio-ecological resilience) from applied, artistic and scientific perspectives.
2. Gain actionable sustainable competences through hands-on sustainability practices.
3. Analyze real-world sustainability challenges through a project approach.
4. Recognize and manage opportunities and challenges in working in mixed-level groups (MBO-HBO-WO)
5. Integrate input from multiple perspectives into a coherent vision of their contribution to societal transitions.

BCS is more immersive than regular minors! It's an immersive experience located off campus in Rotterdam South at the Hef House (Nassaukade 31), with some activities in fieldwork locations and partner companies. We want you to go all in for this experience. Please only sign up for this Minor if you’re prepared to give this program your full attention four days per week (Monday-Thursday) from 10:00 until 17:00 (this includes the day of internship on site at the company) for 10 weeks. On the days you’re at the BCS (Hef House), we will prepare and eat lunch together (we provide the ingredients). There will also be room for your input in this Minor with self-governance sessions where you get to choose who cooks lunch the following week, what guest teachers you want, and whether you want to change some things, teaching you community building and democratic citizenship skills.

Teaching Methods

• Bildung track: 2-hour active-learning workshops (scientific, artistic, practical, embodied) focused on personal and community resilience
• Each (guest) teacher hastheir own learning approach but we require that teachers do not talk for more than 20 minutes, that the classes include practical exercises, individually and in groups, and include a diversity of scientific, philosophical, artistic and embodied perspectives.
• Learning methods in the bildung trackinclude: Double-skin/double-mind “intuitive body” movement practice, mini-lectures (20 minutes),Behaviour change wheel,Dissonance mapping,Collective compositions,Biodiversity observation walks, Ethical dilemma discussion, Experiential Learning, Narrative-Based Learning, Transformative Learning.
• All Bildung track classes will have a 15 minute scaffolded integration exercise at the end to bridge them to the other tracks
• Sustainability track: 3 hour fieldwork, on-site and practical workshops focused on practical, manual sustainability skills including sustainable cooking, upcycling clothing workshop. The learning method is action / practical learning.
• Project track: 2-hour supervised self-directed project sessions with access to tools (like sewing machines, fabrics, paints etc.) to create the art pieces and campaign
• Internship track: 6-8 hour working day at a company, supervised
• Reflection track: 2-hour active-learning workshops
• Learning methods include: Reflective journaling,Mindfulness & visualisation,Cognitive-behavioural reflection,Talker/Listener/Observer exercises,Drama Triangle exercises,Leary’s rose exercises

Teaching Materials
Students are required to cook lunch together Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays at the HefHouse. We will provide ingredients based on a menu decided by the students themselves.
Within the different tracks, based on the aim and content of the projects, teachers will provide teaching materials like cooking ingredients, objects to repair, seeds for planting, sewing machine, and other tools and materials. Students are free to bring their own materials for the sustainability track, but this is not necessary.

Method of Examination
Assessment in the Bildung Climate School minor is holistic and results in a single final grade , awarded at the end of the minor.
Your final grade is based on an individual portfolio that reflects your learning, engagement, and contributions throughout the minor. The portfolio submitted at the end of the minor brings together several components developed during the minor, including outputs from workshops, group projects, and the internship. It will also include reflective and project-related written assignments connected to your individual work, group project, and internship activities. This includes:

• A reflective narrative on your art piece or sustainability creation
• A narrative on your wearable art / fashion piece
• Your project campaign report

Together, these elements demonstrate your development in areas such as sustainability problem-solving, interdisciplinary collaboration, and personal growth.
The final grade for the minor is determined based on the portfolio as a whole. And will be assessed based on the learning objectives above. Active participation, attendance, and engagement in programme activities are essential parts of the learning process and therefore form part of the overall assessment.
During the minor, two Integrated Evaluation Days (week 5 and week 10) provide opportunities to share progress and present intermediate and final project work. These moments are primarily formative and help structure the development of your final portfolio.

Composition of final grade
There will be one grade, based on the different components of the portfolio.