NEW WHEELS FOR CHANGE

The New Wheels of Change (NWOC) project responded to the growing focus on sustainable transport and the cycling boom across Europe, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic. Cities like Vienna, Skopje, Maribor, and Rome saw a rise in cycling as people opted for safer, greener mobility options, highlighting the need for educational initiatives to support green mobility and address climate change. Despite this growth, schools often lacked tools and resources to effectively integrate cycling and traffic education into curricula, while students needed practical ways to learn road safety and environmental awareness. Additionally, road traffic education often relied on parental involvement, deepening social inequalities and limiting access to green mobility. The NWOC project bridged these gaps by developing innovative, digital teaching materials on bicycle safety, accessible to all. The project shared best practices from experts in education and cycling, emphasizing digital tools to meet the growing demand for online learning. Its interactive platform equipped teachers with skills and raised awareness among schools, municipalities, and stakeholders about the importance of green mobility education.

The New Wheels of Change project aimed to promote sustainable transport education by equipping teachers with the tools and knowledge needed to integrate cycling and road safety into their lessons. By developing and sharing innovative, digital-based curricula on sustainable mobility, the project enhanced educators’ professional capacities, ensuring they could deliver impactful and engaging content. This approach helped foster lasting knowledge among pupils, encouraging safe riding behaviors and a better understanding of environmentally friendly transportation. The project’s impact extended beyond the classroom, nurturing responsible and conscious road users. In addition to promoting road safety, the project emphasized environmental awareness and healthy, active lifestyles. It showcased cycling as not only a practical transport mode but also a way to improve personal well-being and address societal challenges like climate change. Through cross-border collaboration, partners shared best practices, unified efforts, and amplified the reach of sustainable transport education across Europe. This approach highlighted shared responsibility in fostering environmentally conscious citizens and laid a foundation for future initiatives.

The project was implemented through close collaboration among four partner organizations, each contributing specialized expertise to ensure its success. Work Package 1 focused on project management, involving extensive communication via online meetings and calls to coordinate processes, develop frameworks, and address key topics for Work Packages 2 and 3. Four transnational meetings in participating countries further strengthened collaboration and ensured partner alignment. Activities under Work Packages 2 and 3 employed engaging and participatory methods, including workshops, teacher training sessions, webinars, and educational fairs. These activities were instrumental in disseminating project content, raising awareness of the topic, and simultaneously serving as a research base for the development of the project’s educational materials. Input from students, teachers, cycling instructors, and other educators ensured the outputs were practical, relevant, and user-friendly. The outcomes underwent rigorous evaluation to ensure they met the needs of target audiences while maintaining high standards of usability. This systematic and collaborative approach was key to achieving the project’s objectives effectively.

The project engaged directly over 225 teachers in creating traffic education content, impacting around 5,000 students across Austria, North Macedonia, Slovenia, and Italy. This collaboration fostered knowledge exchange, shared practices, and cross-cultural cooperation. A transnational network of 980 schools was established, reaching many more teachers, students, and their parents, and is set to grow while promoting sustainable transport education. A key outcome was the creation of a curriculum in 5 languages, designed to help educators integrate sustainable transport into their classrooms. Based on insights from over 225 teachers, the curriculum includes effective strategies and practices. The project also introduced a quiz-based mobile app in 5 languages, a podcast, and classroom board game, offering fun, engaging learning tools tailored to students and valuable for teachers in lesson preparation. These resources cater to different levels and difficulty grades, making them highly applicable in the classroom. All materials are freely available on the project website. Teacher training sessions with around 700 participants across all partner countries further supported the sharing and dissemination of this educational content.