There is a particular excitement that comes with the piloting phase of any project — the moment when designs leave the drawing board and meet the people they were built for. Math4Sustainability has now reached this stage, and it is genuinely wonderful to see our four Green Exhibits come to life in the hands of students, teachers, museum educators and members of the wider public across Europe. 

The exhibits bring mathematics and environmental sustainability together in ways you can actually touch, play and discuss. 

Why piloting matters 

A prototype that works perfectly on paper does not always behave the same way in a classroom, in a museum on a busy afternoon, or at a science event in a public square. Piloting is the moment when an educational tool meets the people it was made for, and where a project learns what genuinely works, what needs another look, and what its users will actually do with it. 

For Math4Sustainability, this means engaging secondary school students and teachers across our partner countries, alongside museum visitors and the wider public. Each pilot follows a simple idea: the exhibit is tried out, reactions are observed, and honest feedback is gathered — what worked, what stood out, what could be improved. The objective is to build a robust evidence base on how engaging, accessible and pedagogically sound each exhibit is, across different national, curricular and cultural contexts. 

What we are seeing so far 

Across the pilots, a consistent and encouraging picture is emerging. Learners are engaging with the exhibits in a hands-on, experiential way, working in teams, discussing, questioning and making the mathematics their own. Teachers are highlighting how the activities open up valuable connections between subjects — mathematics, science, geography, citizenship — that schools too often keep apart, and how naturally the exhibits invite pupils into critical thinking and problem-solving on real environmental questions. 

The early signs suggest that the exhibits are doing exactly what they were designed to do, making mathematics tangible, relevant and genuinely useful for thinking about the world around us. 

What comes next 

The findings from the pilots will feed directly into the next stage of the project, where the consortium will refine the exhibits and prepare them for wider use. None of this would be possible without the time and honest feedback of the pupils, teachers and museum visitors taking part. In every meaningful sense, they are co-creators of the final result. 

Stay tuned to our social channels for more from each pilot. 

Mathematics, it turns out, has a lot to say about the future of our planet. We just needed to give it the right stage.