“One day there will be …”

In the project “One day there will be …” children from six Lower Austrian primary schools discovered valuable raw materials in fairy tale books and explored how resources can successfully be used in a circular way. So then, if things made from raw materials are not disposed of as waste, but reused as recyclable materials.

The pupils explored the existing knowledge about regional raw materials (e.g. gravel, graphite, coal and marble) at their school locations as futurologists. They explored how the history of mankind and energy can be rewritten for the future with the “future workshop” research method and its three phases:

In the fairy tale workshop, the students focused on the recyclable materials in fairy tales. With this new perspective, they entered the second phase, the recycling workshop. There they gained knowledge about recyclable materials, learned about mining during excursions to deposits, conducted interviews with experts, attended workshops, visited museums and laboratories at the Montanuniversity, thus gaining new insights. In the third phase, the future workshop, they rewrote the fairy tales, built figures and backdrops for a Kamishibai theatre, shot stop-motion videos, created audio images and wrote e-books with the title ‘’One day there will be…’. The sustainable resource stories that emerged were future narratives.

The results were presented at a large young researchers' conference at the university campus. The citizen scientists proudly presented their work together with their teachers and showed best practice examples of science communication. A mobile exhibition format means that the project results can also be used at school festivals, science talks, research festivals and other events. At the scientific symposium ‘Wissen schaffen – Zukünfte erzählen’ the project results were discussed in cooperation with the Interdisciplinary Network for Science Education Lower Austria (INSE).

The project results serve as a starting point for school development programmes at the partner schools, while students in teacher training and further education at the University of Education Lower Austria get to know the concept and write master's and bachelor's theses on it. The graphite laboratory developed from this project at the Montanuniversity will stay open for visits of schoolchildren, teachers and students.

The citizen scientists' research into the uses of regional raw materials in the past and present and the stories of recyclable materials have provided data for possible futures in the Anthropocene. The cultural sustainability research carried out with the children, has shown that science communication can be successful with the help of material stories. The teaching and learning processes promote futures literacy, which UNESCO considers a necessary skill for shaping a future worth living. In the Anthropocene, the so-called ‘age of man’, the close interconnection between humans and nature, culture and technology becomes visible. New stories of life in a circular economy creatively foster appreciation for planet Earth as our habitat.