The inclusion of marine conservation practices in the official curriculum was a common ground of this project, which had three main objectives: First was to enhance integration links between four educational centres and four local civil society associations (CSO); this was achieved networking to enhance intercultural competences on marine science and community participatory outreach. Second, to reinforce teacher role and professional development while providing an opportunity to design open educational resources. A holistic approach connected outdoor community actions, acquisition of skills and competences, including innovation on a digital era in four countries and practical science skills in different environmental and cultural contexts. Third, the introduction of a systemic approach to reinforce European educational dissemination practices to increase synergies among national and international networks and develop effective and innovative challenge based learning. ICT tools were used to study real life cases and outdoor community actions on marine litter and trash free seas challenges. Number of partners: Spain: CSO AAE and HighSchool IES Europa -Aguilas Cyprus: CSO AKTI Project and Research Centre and High School Nicolaideio Gymnasio Portugal : CSO CIIMAR and High School Escola de Paredes. ITALY: CSO AIRI_ cerca and High School E. Fermi _Alghero, Sardinia Profiles: 4 High schools from Spain, Cyprus, Italy and Portugal 4 Civil Social Organisations (CSO) from same countries. Working together on the same topic : Marine litter awareness. Activities: Links between CSO and educational centres and networking. Educational material on marine litter topics for secondary Curriculum designed by teachers and students. Exhibition of artwork (made out of marine litter) located at school grounds or local community facilities. Production of video that showcases activities of each participant countries with subtitle in English. Project Website including a Blog and Links to resources on marine litter and a databases. Social media activities using project accounts and reposting students posts to raise awareness on activities and results. Methodology: Online tools to promote team building and networking at local, national and international level. Ocean Conservancy protocol, database implementation and management for marine litter data. Development of educational resources ( Learning pack and Handbook) on issues related to marine litter using the same format in each country. Evidence of sustainability obtained by continuing uploading data in to established marine litter database, programming cleanups on yearly basis and developing new initiatives on citizen science and entrepreneurship linked to marine litter. Results and impact : Improve students / teachers awareness on marine litter problems, social, civic and intercultural skills and entrepreneurship abilities. Promotion of use of Ocean Conservancy protocol and increase the amount of data available from beach clean up activities. Free online marine litter educational resources in Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and English. Collection and management of information for public presentations. Long term benefits: Raised awareness on marine litter in educational communities and society at large. Networking and multiculturality. Use of the scientific method by students and teachers. Use of online tools for educational purposes by teachers and students. Identify how to tackle a global problem and learning by doing. Promotion of environmental management opportunities. Dissemination practices / results and impact: -Use of website, social media and surveys to determine interest in the marine litter problem and use them to raise the awareness on this problem. -Involvement of local community in beach cleanup and reuse of marine litter using circular economy approach. -Inclusion of marine litter topics and beach clean up activity in school program.
The abstract is already in English