DEXPO Developing critical thinking skills for protecting the climate - Educational methods for teaching critical thinking and media literacy on climate change

Climate change as a global phenomenon is the subject of intense debate in various public spaces, from the scientific to the rumour level. Even though there is a scientific consensus on human contribution to climate change, there are still many misconceptions about it, and due to its nature, mass media overemphasizes the harmful effects of global processes. Research shows that among young generation there is a high percentage of the anxiety and also boredom towards the issues of climate change. Also shown that a significant source of information for many people is the social media, a much less reliable source and the ethic of the mass media also changed significantly in the last decade: a flood of misconceptions and fake news is targeting the audience more often. The project based on the need ability to think critically which is crucial and more important than ever before. A critically thinking citizen can navigate among contradictory information, recognizing partial and biased sources. The project offered critical thinking approaches, activities to understand the power of information, gain more critical attitude focusing to the issues of the climate change.

The main objective of this project was to develop educators’ professional skills to ensure that critical thinking strategies and issues concerning media manipulation are part of the educational setting when teaching on climate change. Therefore, we created learning resources to teach the concept of media, media literacy, and developing critical thinking through creative methods available to use in online spaces and foster learners’ active and responsible engagement in protecting the climate. Accordingly, the project achieved the following objectives: 1. Developing and implement educational resources and materials for teaching on climate change and that are freely available online 2. Providing resources and tools for educators’ professional development 3. Creating a solid and long-lasting partnership 4. Improving the educational repertoire, services of the participating organizations in the subject of climate change

Our partnership consisted of 3 NGOs from Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and 1 for-profit organisation from Portugal. The project started with two international trainings (LTTA) for staff members and invited teachers, educators to share and learn the partners already available methods and exchange ideas for developing the productions. The shared methods were supporting the critical approaches and the global educational perspectives focusing on the climate change: • Digital Storytelling (DST) • Philosophy for Children/Communities (P4C) • Visual Literacy • Let’s Look Through Others’ Eyes • Causes and Consequences • Best practices of climate education in schools / Climate change on the spot Based on the trainings and in a cooperation with the adult learners the partners developed the following tools during the project period: • A training scheme • A massive open online course (MOOC) • An Educational Toolkit • An online educational platform Both the training scheme, the MOOC and the educational toolkit was intensively piloted, tested and evaluated by teachers and other educators before the finalisation. Finally more than 70 users were enrolled and attended the online course. We planned to engage local communities in the project and, in this way, offer opportunities for them to contribute to the protection of climate change by working on awareness-raising, initiating local actions with support creating and implementing small-scale projects on local levels by communities, but this part of the application was taken out of the final project plan based on the jury’s opinion.

R1: Training scheme for educators Prior of the development of the Training scheme partners were collecting relevant available (digital) methods, creative, innovative tools, approaches, and practices useful for education on climate change and media literacy and creating a database of resources that would be used for projects´ results development. Desk research of resources was consolidated in the Padlet platforms provided by the leader of R1 (Arpok), which constitutes the general repository or knowledge based shared among all the partners. Collection of teaching resources about climate change is available here: https://arpok.padlet.org/info16110/dexpo-climate-change-and-media-literacy-2fkpwbv8hzayp7kw and here https://arpok.padlet.org/info16110/dexpo-methods-ep30nwf37199fwsc. Four modules of Training scheme for educators were created in English. Each module is focused on a specific method that partners learnt about during two LTTAs in 2022. Specifically, the training scheme includes methods Philosophy for communities, Visual literacy and critical thinking, Through others’ eyes and Causes and consequences. The training scheme contains methods description, suggestions how to use each method, main as well as additional resources relevant for each method, and practical activities/lessons on topics of climate change, critical thinking and media literacy that could be used in a classroom with students. As a part of the Training scheme, there is also a general Introduction with information about how to use the Training scheme, how to set a safe and respectful environment, Icebreaker activities focused on climate change, description of the used methods, glossary of terms related to climate change and a comprehensive list of resources. Training scheme’s English version was piloted by all partners (approx. 6-11 teachers/partner) then translated to national languages (CZ, HU, PT, SLO). All versions are available on the project’s platform: https://dexpo-platform.anthropolis.hu/training-materials/ R2: MOOC course development - adapted to partners’ countries A massive open online course (MOOC) was be developed piloted and adapted for all partners’ national context during the project. The main goal was to equip teachers and educators with a tool they can use independently and individually, flexible on time. The MOOC contains 4 modules, each module was developed by one of the partners with a constant collaboration and consensus. The leader of the R2 (Anthropolis) drafted the main frame of the modules, which have a similar, consistent structure. • Module 1: Changing rope of the teachers (developed by Anthropolis) • Module 2: Introduction to Global Education (developed by Humanitas) • Module 3: Climate change in education (developed by Arpok) • Module 4: Critical thinking, media literacy and fact checking (developed by Mapa) Each module contains an introduction, a warmup activity, some theoretical and practical parts (text, videos, articles), activities and closes with a self-assessment section. The users can work on the MOOC’s parts freely, they can stop anytime and return to the lesson they want. Estimated time to complete the course 60 hours. For the MOOC a technical guide was also developed to support the users and during the project period Anthropolis provided online support as well. The MOOC is available in 5 languages (ENG, CZ, HU, PT, SLO), partners made some small adaptations for the national versions (e.g. local media contexts etc.) The MOOC is available: https://dexpo.anthropolis.hu/ and also via the online platform (R5) R3: Local projects implemented by local communities (cancelled) R4: Education Toolkit An Educational Toolkit was produced on in a PDF format for educators, multipliers. The progress was led by Anthropolis and all partners proposed some newly developed of adapted activities. Most of the activities were created specially for the project’s purposes. The “FAKE OR TRUE? - Toolkit for developing critical thinking skills for protecting the climate” publication contains 15 practical activities designed or adapted specifically to serve the project’s main goal: to ensure that critical thinking strategies and issues concerning media manipulation are part of the educational setting when teaching on climate change. The activities are designed for school environment, they can work as lesson plans, teachers, educators can use them in the classroom. The activities follow a standardized pattern, ensuring clarity and coherence across the toolkit. This structured approach ensures that each activity is user-friendly and adaptable, enabling educators to seamlessly incorporate them into their teaching. The clear delineation of goals and target group characteristics ensures that activities are appropriately challenging and relevant to the students' learning stages. The suggestions for lesson plan suitability provide practical guidance on how to best utilize each activity within the broader educational context. For some of the activities we suggest online option, so you can introduce these activities in online environment. The English version contains 15 activities (59 pages), but all partners had the freedom to choose the most relevant activities for the national circumstances for the CZ, HU, PT and SLO languages versions. All versions are available on the project’s platform: https://dexpo-platform.anthropolis.hu/training-materials/ R5: Online platform In the third year of the project, partners developed an online platform where all the results prepared in the year 1 and year 2 are presented in English and four national languages CZ, HU, PT, SLO). The process was led by Humanitas. The online platform includes: • Introduction page with key information about the platform; • Information about the project and description of all four partners; • Glossary, where the most important key concepts related to climate change, global education and media literacy are explained in clear and understandable way; • Training materials developed during the project: a) Training schemes for educators; and b) Toolkit for developing critical thinking skills for protecting climate called “Fake or True” – all available to download in English and four national languages; • Resource centre with the collection of various resources used or linked to the topics covered in training materials. There is also a simple search tool that helps the user to find specific resources by keywords or type. Each resource contains a title, type, short description, source, length, and keyword (all available in English and all four national languages); • MOOC online course with four online modules (with subpages available in English and all four national languages). The online platform serves as a free and user-friendly digital space where teachers and other educators interested in media literacy education and climate change can easily access materials in English or in their national language (Hungarian, Czech, Portuguese and Slovene). The online platform is innovative due to the MOOC and the collection of other ready-to-use training materials, all developed by partners using and meaningfully combining different methodologies and findings of the research based on the feedback from teachers and other educators and adapted to national contexts. Thus, the online platform offers a structured way to all users (formal and non-formal educators, students and other individuals interested in media literacy education, climate change and critical thinking. The website is hosted by Anthropolis, but all four partners were actively involved in its development. In the first stage, partners discussed and agreed on the structure, design, objectives of the platform, and available content. Humanitas was the main contributor, but all the other partners equally assisted them in creating the platform e due to their previous experiences with creating MOOC courses, collecting data, and setting up digital resource centres. The web design and graphics were prepared by Anthropolis. Besides, each partner was responsible for collecting and editing materials (translation, subscription), launching the online platform in their country, and disseminating it. The platform's address: https://dexpo-platform.anthropolis.hu/