Climate Change Deserves to be in the Curricula

We wanted to achieve an awareness of environment and climate change for students and enriched training methods for teachers who could upgrade themselves throughout our project. We aimed to provide...

We wanted to achieve an awareness of environment and climate change for students and enriched training methods for teachers who could upgrade themselves throughout our project. We aimed to provide related instructions for teachers in terms of integrating environment and climate change into their curriculum latently and digital game competence and soft skills. Our objective is to make a meaningful contribution towards mitigating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, aligning with the European Union's established target. This endeavor hinges upon the successful adoption of behavioral changes pertaining to environmental stewardship and climate resilience.We targeted to create an e-brochure, an e-book and a handbook for teachers. We considered creating an implementation of orienteering for students to explore a specific natural vicinity and the essentials of environment and climate change.

Our initiative commenced with a compact seminar led by our Croatian partner, exploring environmental and climate change topics. Subsequently, presentations delved into the contributions of partner countries to climate change and governmental efforts in mitigation, along with exemplary organizational practices. Carbon footprint assessments were conducted using a free application, with results shared with Croatian leadership for comparison at project culmination. Romanian team members facilitated training sessions on digital game-based and latent learning techniques for project participants. These educators then produced 10 digital games each for students and teachers from partner countries, fostering engagement with environmental issues. A collaborative effort resulted in the creation of a Teachers’ Handbook and an orienteering activity utilizing the digital games. Our outreach extended beyond beneficiaries to encompass additional institutions and trainers, involving informational sessions, press releases, announcements, and webinars to disseminate project insights.

Tangible results are project introduction film, eBrochure, eBook, Project website, eTwinning project, Handbook called ‘Teachers’ Handbook’, which presents how to integrate environment and climate change into curricula using digital game based learning activities with the power of latent learning, including the partnership and project info, the digital games used for the project, trainings on latent learning, sample lesson plans regarding the aim of the project, the results and analysis of carbon footprint calculation, and the webinar presenting the inevitable need of environmet and climate change integration into curricula of all partners' countries. Intangible results are the students with awareness on environment climate change, English language competences, improved soft skills, better self-confidence and more tolerated towards other people from other countries with enlarged perspectives; the teachers who developed themselves in environment and climate change, the inevitable existence of it in the curricula of all types of branches and domains.