Affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy consumption is a crucial goal of the Agenda 2030. To raise each citizen’s awareness for more effective energy consumptions, proper education is necessary. The classroom project GAIA (Green Awareness in Action) was designed to change energy consumption patterns to pursue green behaviour. The class-wise aim was to improve schools’ CO₂-balance and to promote environmentally sustainable behaviour without impacting school life quality. Our target group were sixth graders (N = 132, M = 11.03, SD ± 0.23, 53.4% = girls) of one Greek school. To monitor the project’s effect, a pre- and post-test design was applied to measure environmental literacy regarding environmental knowledge, attitudes/values and behaviour. A regression analysis revealed that students with poor previous knowledge reached higher learning effects compared to those with good previous knowledge. Related to the environmental knowledge types, an ANCOVA analysis revealed a knowledge gain in action-related and effectiveness knowledge. The overall learning effect correlates positively with pro-environmental preference (high scores in preservation, low scores in utilisation) and negatively with weak pro-environmental preferences. Anthropocentric (utilitarian) preferences primarily focussing on nature exploitation have considerably decreased. The project illustrates how far individual behaviour can be targeted in green educational initiatives.

Research in STEAM education continues to develop, and yet the literature in this area is often theoretically ‘light’. Given the importance of theory to provide explanatory power, the aim of this paper is to offer a theoretical classification system to be used as a tool for researchers and practitioners in this area. Derived from literature searches on STEAM education within open science/schooling, secondary/tertiary education intersection and global challenges, 26 frameworks were identified from 26 academic sources and refined based on their coherence and strong theoretical heritage. A relational ontology was proposed as a recurring theme and is a foundational aspect of the final classification system, signifying a shift from traditional models of STEAM that trivialise the ‘arts’ as utility disciplines. The 26 individual frameworks are organised into four approaches: ‘experiential real-world interactions’, ‘human psychological and cognitive’, ‘social, spatial, and material interconnectivity’, and ‘cultural and equity’. The overall classification system provides a starting point for researchers and educators navigating theoretically driven yet diverse STEAM implementation and understanding its impact depending on, and in response to, their preferred methodology. This system is novel in its treatment of theoretical perspectives, and its dynamic nature allows for the inclusion of further frameworks in the future.

The International Workshop of Making as a Pathway to Foster Joyful Engagement and Creativity in Learning (Make2Learn) aims to discuss the introduction of creative and joyful production of artifacts in the learning processes. A variety of environments have been developed by researchers to introduce making principles to young students. Making principles enable them foster co-creativity and joy in learning processes and construct knowledge. By involving students in the design decisions they begin to develop technological fluency and the needed competences, in a joyful way. Make2Learn aims to bring together international researchers, educators, designers, and makers for the exploration of making principles towards the acquisition of 21st Century learning competences, by employing the state of the art aspects of entertainment technologies, new media, gaming, robotics, toys and applications. The main objective is to build a research community around this topical area. In particular, Make2Learn aims to develop a critical discussion about the well-established practices and entertainment technologies of the maker movement, and expected outcomes of putting them into practice under different spaces such as Hackerspaces, Makerspaces, TechShops, FabLabs etc. This will allow us to better understand and improve the value of Maker philosophy and the role of entertainment technologies to support teaching and learning.