Natural phenomena, such as floods and wildfires have always been a part of nature and history, but natural hazards do not need to become disasters. The FORETELL project emerges from the need to promote a culture of safety in Europe against natural calamities. This can only be achieved by cultivating a holistic disaster management approach, which requires a prior knowledge and emphasis on disaster risk reduction tools and strategies. As children are one of the most vulnerable groups, we must teach them from the early age about the environment and the risks, so they will have a better chance to save their lives during disasters. Children are also the future architects, mayors, doctors and parents of the world of tomorrow and if they learn at an early age to respect the environment and learn how to reduce the impacts of disasters, they will create a safer world. According to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, there is a major need to “use knowledge, innovation and education to build a culture of safety and resilience at all levels”. In this context, The FORETELL project exploits innovative technology-based learning strategies and pedagogical frameworks aiming to provide awareness, knowledge and develop essential skills necessary to cope with natural hazards, such as floods and wildfires. The FORETELL project aims to prepare children to cope with these environmental hazards, through experiential learning activities (e.g. task-driven simulations or/and educational games etc) which will be designed based on scenarios of “good practices” regarding these hazards and implemented in a 3D virtual world. Upon completion, the project will provide an on-line learning tool that is particularly effective, pervasive and suitable for the target population and the general public. Furthermore, FORETELL aims to empower the profile of the teaching professions in order to adopt novel approaches in teaching and assist the teachers of Natural Sciences providing them with open digital educational material which will be developed in the context of the project. FORETELL consortium is set according to the objectives of the project and the partners’ expertise required to successfully carry out the planned activities. More specifically, the consortium consists of 4 partners from 4 European countries (Greece, Italy, Malta, Bulgaria). The partners act in the fields of Education, ICT technologies and immersive learning, civil protection and citizenship empowerment of children. In detail the partners are: 1) Hellenic Open University (HOU) in Greece. 2) FELCOS Umbria, a non-profit association composed of Local Authorities and public, private and associative actors, which realises activities for awareness raising and education in global citizenship in Italy. 3) Chief Directorate, Fire Safety and Civil Protection Directorate General, Ministry of Interior in Bulgaria, (FSCP DG). 4) The University of Malta (UOM), Faculty of Education, in Malta. FORETELL project is expected to have a significant impact, involving 4 European Countries in the project implementation phase and aiming at engaging members of schools associations, pupils/ students and their families, as well as parents' associations, university students of Education Studies and Natural Sciences as future educators, policy agencies for education, stakeholders focused on civil protection awareness and citizenship empowerment, public bodies, NGOs etc. Activities will ensure that the project results will spread beyond the consortium through dissemination to the target groups and the wider public, activities for project promotion, including a wide range of publicity activities and exploitation of the tools and outputs developed, aiming to secure project sustainability through the open-source approach.
Phenomena such as floods and fires have always been part of nature and history, but they do not need to become disasters. The FORETELL project emerges from the need to promote a culture of safety in Europe against natural calamities. As children are one of the most vulnerable groups, they must learn from early age about the risks in order to have a better chance to save their lives during dangerous situations. In this context, the FORETELL project exploits innovative technology-based learning strategies aiming to provide awareness, knowledge and develop essential skills necessary to cope with natural hazards, such as floods and fires. To this aim, flood and fire situations have been simulated and implemented as interactive educational games in an online 3D virtual world. The educational games have been designed according to scenarios of good practices in case of flood or fire. During the games the players are prompted to explore the virtual environment, interact with it, collect information, collaborate with peers, in some cases, and finally use their gained knowledge and critical thinking to resolve the dangerous situations. The online 3D virtual learning environment is attractive and suitable for children aged 8-15, fully supports English, Greek, Italian, Bulgarian and is accompanied with comprehensive User Handbook and explanatory videos. Additionally, the FORETELL project aims to empower the profile of the teaching professions to adopt novel approaches in teaching, providing teachers with open digital educational material about floods and fires which has been developed in the context of the project. The FORETELL consortium was set according to the objectives of the project and the required partners’ expertise to successfully carry out the planned activities. More specifically, the consortium consists of four partners from four European countries (Greece, Italy, Malta, Bulgaria). The partners act in the fields of Higher Education, ICT technologies and immersive learning, civil protection and citizenship empowerment of children. In detail the partners are: 1) Hellenic Open University in Greece (Project Coordinator), 2) FELCOS Umbria, a non-profit association composed of Local Authorities and public, private and associative actors, which carries out activities for awareness raising and global citizenship education in Italy, 3) Fire Safety and Civil Protection Directorate General in Bulgaria, 4) University of Malta, Faculty of Education & Institute of Digital Games. The implementation phase of the project as well as the dissemination and publicity activities that took place in all partner countries engaged a large number of direct and indirect target groups, such as members of schools associations, students and their families, educators, university students of Education Faculties as future educators, stakeholders focused on civil protection awareness and citizenship empowerment, public educational bodies, etc. The 3D virtual learning environment of FORETELL is scalable and open, so new languages and new scenarios could be added. The educational material of FORETELL is uploaded on a Moodle site so as to be open and available to public. All key outcomes and videos of the project, as well as the links to the registration page of the 3D virtual learning environment and the Moodle site, are freely accessible through the project web site (http://foretell.eap.gr/index.php/en/) and YouTube channel.