Recent elections in Europe (and the US) as well as Brexit and the Danish Europol referendum has shown a growing skepticism towards the benefits of European cooperation. The population seems to feel a distance to decision making processes, that influence their daily life. At the same time there is a tendency for youth to not use their democratic options. Now is the time to ensure that young people and future generations feel part of European cooperation - and democracy at large. We believe that Europe Alive has the potential to invoke a sense of ownership and engagement in the European Union for the participants. Europe Alive is a new and innovative way of creating engaging teaching material on Europe for young people. We find a need for students to learn about their role as citizens – more than subjects – and let them experience the structures and ways of the European corporation first hand. Based on all partners’ experience in producing, distributing and running learning processes about very complex issues our next goal is to bring the European Union closer to the students. Traditional teaching strategies put students behind a desk and at the receiving end. We will let them play a role, be unable to hide and have to act. Europe Alive will result in two very tangible products both available on europealive.org. One will be fact sheets on the structures of the European Union for all teachers to use in their curricula. The other will be the role-play itself. The concept of Europe Alive goes beyond traditional role-plays already on the market as it will be vastly digitalized. This means that instructions, data and some interaction will be online making it much easier to facilitate, monitor, evaluate, scale, and disseminate. The partnership is seeking to develop a computer-assisted simulation for education (CASE)-game that meets the requirements of secondary education and youth education. We combine the role-play with a digital platform that guides about 100-200 students at a time and their teachers through a dynamic negotiation process in the EU. The task for the participants will be to find acceptable common rules for EU citizens who wish to study or work in a country other than their own. Students should themselves conduct negotiations and thus experience how to handle problems vis a vis other European players. The gamification of the learning process will keep the students hooked. The partnership consists of four partners, each with their own unique profile comprising the capabilities to make Europe Alive a European success. Dansk Kommunikation, LAG Brandenburg, University of Hanover, Teach the Future and the Publishing House Columbus are all highly experienced in developing learning tools, and have a vast and strong network within the secondary education sector and in civic education in their respective countries as well as existing organizational structures for marketing and dissemination of Europe Alive. Creating this complex digital platform is no easy task. Dansk Kommunikation has experience in creating other CASE-technology products and will take the lead in drafting learning outcomes, storyboards and instructions. All partners will play a crucial role in ensuring the academic standard of the learning method in all partner countries. Furthermore, all partners will focus on contributing to the pedagogical design of the CASE-technology, so we are able to maximize the learning outcome of Europe Alive. Dansk Kommunikation will develop the software technology with programmers and graphic designers. Once developed Europe Alive will be an open access teaching tool on the European Union. It will be easily accessible from the website and demands only minimal preparation for the teachers. The partners will establish the Europe Alive Association to ensure that all maintenance costs can be upheld, less affluent institutions can be supported to be able to play Europe Alive, the necessary development of the technology will take place, more games will be developed and the dissemination of Europe Alive in more European countries will take place. The first role-plays in action will take place in each partner country and serve as a showcase for all interested teachers in the local area. This way we will make sure that the demand for new and engaging ways of teaching the European Union to current and future youth generations is not only met but also easily disseminated all over Europe. Europe Alive will have the potential of reaching hundred thousands of students in only a few years and hence give young people tools and knowledge to act as active citizens in the European Union.
Our motivation for applying to Erasmus+ for funds to develop the Europe Alive project was the worry that young European Citizens feel increasingly distant from the EU democratic processes, and that learning about the EU in the Social Sciences has low interest with students in many European countries, including Denmark, Germany and The Netherlands. Our overall objective was to develop an innovative role playing game as well as surrounding teaching materials that would give secondary level students a) better knowledge of the EU law-making process, b) higher motivation for learning more about the EU and higher interest in EU politics, and c) practice in debating, negotiating and taking a political stance. We believe we have achieved this by developing a hybrid: a digital role play that ties in with traditional classroom education and which facilitates extensive interpersonal contact between student participants. We have reached 52 teachers and 886 secondary level students within our project period. Europe Alive has the potential to reach many more, but was severely struck by Covid-19 restrictions. The main activities of the Europe Alive project have been: Intellectual Output 1: - Defining the intended learning outcomes and didactical framework - Anchoring teaching contents in the national Social Sciences curricula of the partner countries - Drafting Factsheet 1 & 2 - Drafting the follow-up module - Involving teachers and students in quality checking the IO1 Intellectual Output 2: - Drafting Storyboard 1-5 - Graphic design - Role play design - Programming the digital platform - Evaluating and quality checking the digital platform Dissemination and Evaluation: - Participation at online workshops - Seeking partnerships with key actors in all three partner countries - ‘Minimum viable product’ test - Evaluation 1 of pilot test - Evaluation 2 of the DK multiplier event & teacher onboarding In addition, numerous activities regarding partner communication and project management will be described further in the coming report. Many participating students reported gaining higher understanding as well as interest in the EU and politics at the European level. Many participating teachers agreed that Europe Alive succeeds in teaching difficult EU-curricula while fostering political awareness in the students. We believe that Europe Alive has the potential to invoke a sense of ownership and engagement in the European Union for the participating students.