Shaping tomorrow

Wei Rui, a professor at Beijing Normal University, says children's endeavors to live a low-carbon life and participate in voluntary services is an index to assess their sustainability literacy which refers to the knowledge, skills and mindsets that allow individuals to become deeply committed to building a sustainable future and assisting in making informed and effective decisions to this end.

The center is collaborating with BNU to work out a model for young people's sustainability literacy by which those pertinent skills can be quantitative. Then it would be easier for policymakers, leaders and educators who intend to cultivate youth with competency of sustainable development to explain the concept, as well as develop and assess the skills.

Wei says Chinese people attach importance to moral education, so the model will highlight merits that are valued in Chinese culture.

"We hope to fuse Chinese wisdom with the model and make it in line with our national conditions," he says.

The model will also stress youngsters' ability to find innovative solutions to address challenges, which requires critical thinking, teamwork, self-cognition and risk-assessment skills, digital literacy and intercultural communication competence, he adds.