Bright Hydro Future Foundation submitted its recommendations to the European Commission as part of the European consultation focused on strengthening basic skills and improving performance in school education.
For us, taking part in this discussion is a natural continuation of an idea that lies at the heart of our educational initiatives:
Scientific literacy should not be measured solely by the number of facts a student can remember. Real understanding begins when students are able to see the connections between them.
The World Is Not Divided into School Subjects
At school, physics, chemistry, biology, geography and technology are understandably taught as separate disciplines. But the real world does not function this way.
Take water scarcity as an example. It is not only an environmental problem. It is simultaneously a question of climate, physics, infrastructure, energy, economics and human behaviour.
The energy transition is also not merely an engineering challenge. It is connected to natural resources, technology, economics, society and the way people respond to change.
Waste, too, is part of a much longer process that begins with a resource, passes through production and consumption, and ultimately ends with the transformation of materials and energy.
This is precisely why we believe the future of science education should increasingly encourage students to see the world as a system of interconnected processes.
From Memorisation to Understanding
Modern society has access to an almost unlimited amount of information. As a result, the ability to memorise large quantities of facts is gradually becoming less important than other skills:
– asking the right questions;
– recognizing cause-and-effect relationships;
– evaluating evidence;
– comparing different explanations;
– understanding uncertainty;
…and, above all, being able to connect knowledge from different fields into a broader picture.
This is also the philosophy behind Bright Hydro Future’s pilot educational initiative “Entropy for Kids.”
Instead of presenting isolated scientific facts, the programme follows a continuous narrative – from the origins of the Universe and the formation of matter, the emergence of stars and planets, through energy transformation and the emergence of life, to the way humans observe, understand, feel and influence the world around them.
The aim is not to replace traditional teaching. Quite the opposite. The aim is to provide students with a framework in which individual pieces of knowledge begin to make sense as parts of a common system.
The Next Step – “Entropy of Nature”
Building on the same concept, Bright Hydro Future is developing its next educational initiative – “Entropy of Nature.” It focuses on resources and the way modern society uses them.
The main topics include:
– water and water scarcity;
– energy and its transformations;
– materials and resource efficiency;
– waste and reuse;
– the circular economy;
– the relationship between everyday decisions and their consequences for natural systems.
This allows us to keep the central idea simple:
Resources do not disappear when we stop using them. They transform and become part of another system.
When students begin to understand this principle, sustainability stops being an abstract word. It becomes a logical consequence of the way the world works!
What We Recommended to the European Commission
In the position submitted by Bright Hydro Future, we outlined four areas that we believe could play an important role in the future of European education.
More Interdisciplinary Learning
Students should have more opportunities to understand the connections between physics, chemistry, biology, the environment, technology and society. This does not mean removing individual subjects, but creating more bridges between them.
More Learning Through Questions and Real-World Problems
Scientific thinking develops most effectively when students investigate a problem, search for evidence, test assumptions and reach explanations themselves. Topics such as water, energy, climate, materials and technology offer enormous potential for this type of learning.
Better Access to High-Quality Educational Resources
Teachers should have easy access to short videos, visual explanations, experiments, worksheets and ready-to-use lesson structures. It is important that such materials can also be used in schools without expensive laboratory equipment or significant additional budgets.
Support for Pilot Educational Models
The European Union can play a much stronger role in connecting schools, teachers, universities, scientific organisations and civil society initiatives. Small but effective educational experiments should be easier to test, evaluate and transfer between different countries.
Innovation in education does not always begin with major reform. Sometimes it begins with one teacher, one classroom and one idea that works.
Education Must Prepare People for an Increasingly Complex World
Future generations will have to make decisions in an environment where science, technology, energy, resources and economics are becoming increasingly interconnected. Strengthening basic skills should therefore not mean only achieving higher test scores.
A scientifically literate student should be able to understand information, evaluate evidence, recognise relationships between different processes and anticipate the consequences of different decisions. It is a mistake for education to provide only ready-made answers.
It should give young people the intellectual tools they need to understand the world for themselves.
Through its participation in the European consultation, Bright Hydro Future has expressed its readiness to share its practical experience, develop educational pilot initiatives and contribute to future European cooperation aimed at strengthening scientific literacy and building an education system that connects knowledge with the real world.