The activity The power of reflection and gratitude gives students the space to pause and reflect on a personal challenge or learning experience related to sustainability. Through a reflection letter, they explore how they dealt with this challenge, what helped them, and what they would like to tell themselves or someone else. This activity fosters resilience, ownership, and motivation to contribute to a more sustainable world.
- Activity goal
- Practice skills | Reflect
- When
- In class | Post class
- Where
- Offline
- Duration
- < 30 minutes| < 60 minutes
- Group size
- Small | Medium
- Materials
Paper, pen or pencil, post it's
Step-by-Step
Step 1
Introduction: Discuss with students that sustainability themes (such as climate change, biodiversity, energy, circularity, etc.) bring not only societal but also personal challenges. Ask students to brainstorm concrete situations in which they felt overwhelmed, powerless, engaged, or hopeful. They briefly write these down on post-its and share them in pairs. Then they also share in pairs what helped them in these situations.
Step 2
Choose your letter: Students choose whether to write a letter to themselves (A letter to myself) or to someone who inspired them or whom they are grateful to (A letter to you). Let them complete this sentence:
“I am writing to ___ because ___.”
Step 3
(Optional) What is a strengths-based approach?: You can invite students to reflect explicitly from a strengths-based perspective. Briefly explain that this approach means drawing on one’s personal qualities, skills, and resources. Discuss examples such as perseverance, asking for support, putting things in perspective, humor, or seeking information. Encourage students to highlight in their letter what helped them (strengths and resources) and what they are grateful for.
Step 4
Writing the reflection letter: Students work independently on their letter. This can be done with a template or freely on paper. If using a template, provide short prompts (sentence starters) for students to complete. Alternatively, offer reflection questions such as:
- What was the challenge?
- Who or what helped?
- What are you grateful to yourself or the other person for?
- What did you learn about your strengths and resources?
- What do you want to pass on to yourself or the other person?
Step 5
Sharing reflections: Invite a few students (voluntarily) to share a fragment of their letter with the group or in pairs.
Step 6
Closing reflection: Discuss as a class:
- What was it like to do this exercise?
- What did you learn about yourself?
- How can you use this form of reflection in daily life or in this course?
Tip 1
This activity is flexible: students can reflect on personal experiences or on their learning process.
Tip 2
Use guiding questions to deepen the reflection.
Tip 3
Create a safe atmosphere by emphasizing that sharing the letter is voluntary.
Tip 4
Allow students to either keep their letter or hand it in as a (formative) assignment.
Paper or optional templates for the letters, pen or pencil, post-its
Consider the tools and materials mentioned here as suggestions. In many cases it’s possible to use alternative tools. Please turn to the Learning & Innovation team of your faculty first to see which online and offline tools are available and how to apply them.
