Today, over half of the world population lives in urban areas. Buildings are central to the EU's energy efficiency policy, as nearly 40% of final energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions is in houses, offices, shops and other buildings. Improving the energy performance of Europe's building stock is crucial, not only to achieve the EU's 2020 targets but also to meet the longer-term objectives of EU’s climate strategy as laid down in the low carbon economy roadmap 2050. If we continue with this rate of energy use -in conjunction with population growth projections, with a little new sources of fossil fuels- we could deplete all natural resources within few decades. It is a fact that, actors in building sector have potentials to reduce environmental impact by incorporating energy efficient technologies in design, construction and operation of both new and existing buildings. Zero energy buildings (ZEB) are more effective and advantageous design approaches with several successful examples all over the world. Today we have an opportunity to address climate change by creating low-carbon and zero carbon cities, districts. EU countries have already agreed on to draw up national plans to increase the number of zero energy buildings. Furthermore, a European Commission progress report from 2013 found that EU countries had to significantly step up their efforts to take advantage of the opportunities presented by nearly zero-energy buildings. In relation to youth work, it is possible to argue that energy is one the most serious concerns for the welfare of current and future generations. There is an urgent need for all of youngsters -individually and collectively- to become more aware of the “built environments” that consumes certain percentage of national energy. We believe that teaching environmental protection and raising an awareness on energy that buildings consumes should take place beyond the classroom. Within this framework, the proposed project can be considered as an initiative that will create an awareness on "energy efficient buildings" among young people. Not only training of young people but also training the trainers would be possible through the project process. A set of educations materials and methods, including LINE technique as much as possible (field trips, technical visits etc.), using IT to create interactive learning environments, interactive face-to-face sessions and using open source interactive software will be prepared. Our partner’s expertise and experiences will guide us to set the curricula. The training curriculum will include Building Energy/Sustainability, Zero Energy Concept, Energy Demand and Carbon Emissions of the Buildings, Energy Efficient Buildings, Energy Efficient Building Technologies, Active and Passive Systems, Passive Houses, Environment Friendly Buildings Using Renewable Energy Sources, Related Legislations Building certification systems etc. Youngsters training participation will be certified and volunteer activities will be acknowledged by the partners of the project. Buildings are responsible for 40% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Authorities highly accept that zero energy buildings are the "future". It has not only to do with engineering, but also aspects of social and behavioural research, using language and creative media to encourage young people to take action to improve the energy use. Young volunteers can leverage and integrate the tools and knowledge on passive design technology, community integration and the natural environment to aware the community around them. We believe that there really is something for everyone. We NEED EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOUTH to bring their own skills, ENERGY and interests to tackle this challenge together.
Concerning youth work, it is possible to argue that energy is one of the most serious concerns for the welfare of current and future generations. There is an urgent need for all youngsters -individually and collectively- to become more aware of the “built environments” that consume a certain percentage of national energy. We believe that teaching environmental protection and raising awareness on energy that buildings consume should take place beyond the classroom. In this context, our project FROMZERO2HERO: Wise Energy Use Volunteering Scheme for Youngsters which can be considered as an initiative to raise awareness about “energy-efficient buildings” among young people, successfully fulfilled the objectives and instructions in the application form. However, the project activities and objectives were realized and reached their final form. • With the project process, it was possible not only to train young people but also to train trainers. Both young people and trainers participated in all the project activities we did. • A set of educations materials and methods, including the LINE technique as much as possible (field trips, technical visits, etc.), using IT to create interactive learning environments, interactive face-to-face sessions, and using open source interactive software was prepared. • Our partner’s expertise and experiences guided us to set the curricula. Our target group has been determined as students, seniors, professionals & groups at risk. Our project provided an interactive learning environment for young people (15-25 years old) who want to shape their lives and environments. In addition, trainers (academics, youth leaders from youth centers) also benefited from our project. After the training, the trainers shared the knowledge, experience, and learning materials they gained from the project with the young people. The e-learning platform we have prepared and provided an innovative and easy-to-use, and understandable educational environment to students, young people, educators, and all individuals who want to improve themselves in this regard. The e-learning platform is prepared in English. “From Zero To Hero LMS” platform includes 7 modules in the curriculum. Users have the opportunity to access the content, learning outcomes, activity cards, and videos of each module. Thus, our project has reached its goal in terms of providing a solid foundation for young people, trainers, and sector employees. We performed & are still performing our dissemination activities thru meetings, seminars, conferences, face-to-face discussions. As from the dissemination activities, we see that our project has great interest from the participants & we believe that our project will have a great impact on our target group in the future also. The outputs we prepared within the scope of our project are very original and will be very useful for the users of our project, especially the target audience since no similar project has been carried out so far. All the outputs we have prepared have been announced as open to everyone on our project's WEB page: https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/. The IO’s and connections we have produced within the scope of our project are as follows; National Report-Background and Needs Analysis (IO1) https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/project-results/io1-national-field-research-reports Literature Survey on Zero Energy Buildings and non-formal learning/teaching strategies (IO2) https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/project-results/io2-energy-quiz-and-energy-tutorial-modules Interactive learning modules (IO3) https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/project-results/1094-2 Available courses: https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/lms/my/ Videos on Zero Energy Buildings (IO4) https://fromzerotohero.gazi.edu.tr/io4-e-learning-website Our consortium consists of 8 partners, including 2 Universities (GAZI and ANKU), 2 Associations (TTMD, CIAPE), and 4 companies (Erbil, AELV, VMT, Izocam). In order to provide different perspectives and contributions to the project, universities, sector representatives and associations took part in our consortium. The division of tasks in the partnership was as follows and we successfully implemented our activities by making the distribution of tasks as follows: A1: Coordination of Project and Management (GU) A2: National Report-Background and Needs Analysis (ANKU, TTMD, IZOCAM, CIAPE, AELV, VMT) A3: Training Modules (GU, CIAPE, VMT, TTMD, IZOCAM) A4: Interactive teaching/learning Modules, (ERBIL) A6: Videos for youth (AELV) A7: Dissemination and Exploitation activities (CIAPE, TTMD)