That is an excellent summary of the Salomon Project‘s core mission. This initiative—originating in Europe and often connected with the broader CLIMADEMY network—is a powerful model for shifting climate change education from passive learning to active, competence-based engagement.
The project’s goal is to develop specific Sustainability Competences in students by having them:
- Analyze real-world, complex climate and sustainability data.1
- Narrate a compelling story or vision based on that analysis.
Here is a breakdown of the key elements, competences, and tools involved in the Salomon Project model.
🏛️ Core Principles of the Salomon Project
The Salomon Project goes beyond traditional lessons by creating an interdisciplinary, project-based learning (PBL) experience. It is often structured around themes inspired by literature (like Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities) to examine real-world sustainability concepts through a lens of complexity and systemic thinking.2
1. Focus on Systemic Thinking
- It moves past isolating climate change as a single scientific topic. Instead, it treats it as a complex, systemic issue that is interwoven with economics, social justice, resource management, and ethics.
- Teachers from different disciplines (Science, History, Literature, Math) collaborate to show these interdependencies.
2. Real-World Data as a Cornerstone
- The project culminates in students working with authentic climate data, often utilizing sophisticated simulation tools. This links abstract scientific concepts to tangible environmental phenomena.
- A key tool used for this is the En-ROADS Climate Simulator , which allows students to manipulate global policy levers (like carbon price, energy efficiency, and land use) to see their systemic impact on future climate projections.
✅ Key Sustainability Competences Developed
The Salomon Project model aims to align with the European GreenComp framework, focusing on four areas that empower students to become agents of change:
| Competence Area | Description & Skill Development | CLIMADEMY Connection |
| 1. Embracing Complexity | The ability to connect the dots between seemingly disparate data points (e.g., relating rising temperatures to crop yields, energy policy, and migration patterns). | Develops Systems Literacy crucial for understanding interconnectedness in agricultural value chains. |
| 2. Envisioning Sustainable Futures | The skill of using data analysis to imagine and model desirable future scenarios, moving past “doom and gloom” to a hopeful, actionable plan. | Promotes Entrepreneurial Mindsets by using data to identify solutions and market opportunities. |
| 3. Critical Data Analysis | The ability to interpret real-time or historical data, evaluate sources, and understand the uncertainty and trade-offs inherent in climate solutions (e.g., the trade-off between bioenergy and food security). | Builds Scientific Literacy and evidence-based decision-making for adaptation strategies. |
| 4. Acting for Sustainability (Narration) | The capacity to communicate the complex analysis in a compelling way (the “narrative”). This involves translating technical data into a story that can influence peers, policymakers, or local communities. | Fosters Advocacy and Leadership skills, essential for teachers and students engaging with the public. |
💡 Application for Teachers (The “How-To”)
For a teacher community like CLIMADEMY, the Salomon Project offers concrete methodological inspiration:
- Interdisciplinary Team Teaching: Organize teacher teams to co-develop one common “Salomon-style” project. For example, a Math teacher handles data analysis, a Social Studies teacher examines the local economic impacts, and a Language teacher crafts the final narrative/report.
- Inquiry-Based Learning: Instead of giving students the data and the conclusion, provide them with a problem (e.g., “Our county’s main crop is failing. What 3 policy changes will make us climate-resilient by 2050?”) and then train them to use the En-ROADS simulator or local climate data to find their own answers.
- Local Contextualization: The most powerful narratives come from local data. Teachers should be trained to use data from local meteorological stations, county agricultural reports, or school farm records to make the analysis immediately relevant.