Secondary School Dr. Vieira de Carvalho

The secondary school Dr. Vieira de Carvalho is one of the six schools in the School Grouping Dr. Vieira de Carvalho. It is in the municipality of Maia, district of Porto (the second biggest city in Portugal).

It provides elementary, middle, and secondary education for students aged 12 to 18 years. 627 middle and secondary students distributed across 40 classes study here, with 53 teachers and 46 non-teaching staff members.

The school’s motto is “Educate for Life and Train to Citizenship”.

The Secondary School Dr. Vieira de Carvalho is in the municipality of Maia, which sets the example for sustainability.

 According to the school’s director, “Maia has for many years a policy of door-to-door rubbish collection […] recycling rubbish is internalized for more than 15 years”.

According to one of the school’s teachers, here, ESD is characterized by “ […] activities outside the classroom, activities to put students to work […] and diversified because we went to the beach, we go to the rivers”.

 

In addition, for the school’s director, teachers use “concrete cases from real life […] a spill, an oil tanker, what is happening in the oceans […] see what was done, what can be done to improve, why it happened […]”.

According to the school director, for successful ESD implementation, “the starting point […] is to approach where  (students’) knowledge might be and to bring information […] videos, reports, analysis of news about what is happening in the world. Then try to see what the [students’] opinion is, the preconception they have on the subject […] then approach the content from a scientific point of view, and then try to put it into practice with examples”.