CSO: Umweltzentrum Tübingen
Area: Education
Location: Tübingen

Type of project

Vocational school students in the district of Tübingen are introduced to climate change/climate protection and to sustainable device use, resource conservation, cost savings, recycling, and upcycling. Workshops lay the content foundations and sensitise participants to climate and environmental protection topics.

The project is based on the assessment that climate and environmental topics often feel too far removed from vocational students’ everyday lives, despite frequent news about floods, storms, and heatwaves. The applicants expect that a concrete, practical approach can spark greater interest in this target group, and that hands-on work—combined with providing support to people seeking help—will be motivating.

Target

Vocational school students tend to be generally less interested in climate and environmental topics; previous classroom experience of the organisation suggests that usually only a few students can be reached through standard teaching units. The project builds on collaboration with teachers, school leadership, and the school provider (district administration), which provides reliable communication and organisational structures to recruit students specifically for the Re:Pair project.

Science – Based

At the start of the project, scientific background work on climate change/climate protection, resources, and suspected obsolescence of devices is planned. This is to be developed using concrete examples and based on the current state of knowledge.

Gender

The project plans to develop a gender and diversity concept aimed at reducing gender-related access barriers. The fiche mentions gender-sensitive didactics, targeted outreach to young women, reflection on (assumed) gender-typical consumption patterns (electronics vs. textiles), and mixed teams in repair groups.

Planned activities

• Structural preparation in spring 2026, including content development and organisational coordination among the involved actors. 
• Workshops at schools to establish the foundations for the project, including the final development and design of information materials, scripts, presentations, and workshop materials. 
• Establishment of a bicycle repair café at the vocational school in Tübingen. 
• Electronics/IT repairs at the vocational school in Rottenburg, and a textile workshop with upcycling in cooperation with Wissenschaftsladen Tübingen e.V.

Action model

The project logic is that workshops establish science-informed foundations on climate change, resource use, and device lifecycles, which are then connected with practical repair and upcycling formats (bicycle repair, electronics/IT repairs, textile upcycling). By linking climate and resource topics to hands-on “doing it themselves” and to providing concrete help for others, the approach is expected to increase motivation among vocational students who are otherwise difficult to engage. The organisational cooperation with schools and the district is designed to enable targeted recruitment and continued implementation across participating schools, while the different repair formats allow learning on what works best for engaging this target group.