The selected projects are known! Call for innovative green education actions

We are very happy that we have concluded our selection process for our call for innovative green education actions! 

Believe us, it was really difficult to find the little differences in the so many inspiring projects we received, letting shine through all your driving ambitions for participatory climate education. 

Meet them during the Education for Climate Days 2022! 

Congratulations to our wonderful community projects!

1. "Germinar um banco de sementes" [Sprouting a seed bank] 

Aims to create a seed bank from the school space involving the local community. The goal is to educate for active citizenship, construct a more aware society of its natural heritage and use dematerialization mechanisms (collaborative economy and sustainable consumption) which contribute to conserving the existing genetic heritage. The project is structured in several activities, expanding from schools - students, teachers and employees - to educators and the local community, or at a national level by free seed sharing. 

• Education level: primary education, secondary general education, lifelong learning 

• Involved: students, teachers, school board/ headmaster, parents, school neighbourhood 

Maria Joao Fonseca (project coordinator) 

2. GLUP-GLUP 

There is much evidence of the existence of a current climate change, among whose consequences is the rise in sea level. This increase will result in the disappearance of beaches, marshes and wetlands, coastal flooding, shoreline erosion, brackish water intrusion and significant economic damage. Our hypothesis is based on the fact that getting information to the population instead of them having to look for it and using something as widely used as a mobile phone, means that the message is transmitted to more people to create more effective environmental awareness. This project aims to raise awareness among the population through the creation of the GLUP-GLUP mobile application, which generates a notification when the person is in an area that will be flooded by the sea in the year 2100. When you click on this notification, the app takes you to a web page designed to provide more information about climate change. 

• Education level: post-secondary vocational education 

• Involved: students, teachers, neighbourhoods 

Ana Belen Yuste Martinez (teacher) 

3. EkoEksperymentarium, play and be part of the change 

EkoEksperymentarium is a wide programme of climate education dedicated to children up to 11 years old. It started in 2020 successfully reaching schools and preschools in Poland. The programme is based on 5 online gamified lessons (27 games) about sustainable habits such as saving water, energy and resources; carbon and water footprint or waste segregation. The platform is accessible for free, without logging-in and teachers are provided with lesson scenarios, worksheets and printables to help them organize the lesson. We also support teachers by publishing newsletter, blogging leading a FB group as well as offering diplomas and incentives. Constant communication campaigns are run for the project together with evaluation and innovation systems. EkoEksperymentarium reaches 750.000 unique users each year, that is hundreds of thousands of children learning. EkoEksperymentarium is also an off-line project: an experiment-and-learn exhibition presented this year in 3 cities in Poland. 

• Education level: early childhood education and care, primary education 

• Involved: students, teachers, parents, ministry, stakeholders, scientists, industry experts, media 

Joanna Studzinska (programme creator)

Meet them during the Education for Climate Days 2022! 

Methodology 

1. Screening of projects according to communicated and pre-set criteria (see underneath), each asked for in EU Survey specifically. Exclusion from next step if not met (true: outside EU / platform blog missing/ not submitted in English at all). 

2. First round evaluation: individual top-5 rankings of remaining projects according to defined criteria, including up to 5 runners-up. 

3. Second round evaluation: combining same-in-different top-5 rankings to converge to 15 projects at max.  

4. Final weighting: 10 points each for AMBITION, MULTIDISCIPLINARITY, PARTICIPATORY APPROACH, TANGIBILITY, e.g., project scoring out of 40, & 12 points each for COMMUNITY (impact beyond classroom).  

5. Final ranking and selection according to highest aggregated points received out of 52.  

What is this all about?

• We launched an open call for innovative green education actions from the 28th of July to the 25th of September.

• We recevied 37 high-quality submissions across learning levels and approaches!

• Our aim was: (1) to learn from the community what their green education actions are to highlight the state of art in European initiatives in a community showcase; (2) to illustrate education innovation in the field and engage with the green learning actions to inspire and get inspired; (3) build-up a participatory green learning examples collection on the community platform. 

• Our communicated submission evaluation criteria were: (1) main project base in any EU Member State, (2) complete project description & concrete actions having happened within last 5 years; (3) participatory project design & management; (4) covers at least 1/5 Education for Climate innovation areas; (5) addresses at least 1/12 GreenComp competences; (6) includes one of the innovative learning and teaching methods listed in the Council recommendation on learning for the green transition and sustainable development; (7) tangible project evidence/content; (8) community reception. 

• From all the replies received (both EU survey & platform blog), 3 community examples were be selected with notification about the selection outcome at the beginning of October. 

• The selected projects will join us live on the online stage on the 9th of November 2022 at 17:00 CET in English & participate actively in a COP27 online session together with Climate Pact Ambassadors.