The project 'Global Heat’ is aimed at bringing together teachers and students to study the consequences of global warming from a scientific point of view. It is a project involving 4 different secondary schools, situated in Italy, Austria, Sweden and Belgium and they will all involve study programs with a clear focus on sciences (e.g. STEM, Technique Sciences or Chemistry and Physics). Students will all attend the final years of their study program and are already trained in laboratory work and scientific experiments at their home institutions. In recent years, more and more problems related to global warming become apparent in our societies and the need for correct, scientific information has been noticed at different levels, European and national alike. All the partners involved in this project wanted to strengthen the current and future generations to deal with these problems by showing them hands on the effects of global warming in different environments. Therefore, we will study the glacier, volcanic, water and urban environments present at the different partner schools and perform some experiments and scientific tests which we can then compare to already existing research. The project ‘Global Heat’ takes the locations of the different schools as a starting point to look at the different issues global warming brings along in each of them. For instance, how does the rising temperature influence water levels or melting of glaciers, which role do volcanoes play in natural disasters, how are densely populated areas confronted with mobility and ecological problems, what are the effects of climate migration, what is the role of Europe in this debate,… In the first year of this project, teachers of all four partners will work together on composing teaching materials and exchange weeks that help their students understand the complexity of this matter. They will increase their own knowledge and skills and the competences of their pupils to conduct small scale scientific research in this matter and compare it in time and place. In this year, only groups of student from Belgium and Italy are exchanged to attend excursions. This will allow us to test this innovative approach on outdoor learning already on a smaller scale. In the second year, student groups from all four partners will go to all four destination so a complete comparison between the different environments can be made by the students. The exchanges will be organized in such a way that different groups of students will be involved in the different exchange weeks and so varying mixed working groups are composed. They will be connected by their motivation to study a certain area or phenomenon and will focus their scientific research on it. Because, as Barack Obama said it: “ Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now.”
The project 'Global Heat’ was aimed at bringing together teachers and students to study the consequences of global warming from a scientific point of view. This project involved 4 different secondary schools, situated in Italy, Austria, Sweden and Belgium. They have all involved study programs with a clear focus on sciences (e.g. STEM, Technology & Sciences or Chemistry & Physics). Students were all in the final years of their study program and had already performed laboratory work and scientific experiments at their home institutions. In recent years, more and more problems related to global warming have become apparent in our societies and the need for correct scientific information has been noticed at different levels, European and national alike. All the partners involved in this project wanted to strengthen the current and future generations to deal with these problems by showing them hands-on the effects of global warming in different environments. Therefore, we studied the glacier, volcanic and water environments at the different partner schools and performed some experiments and scientific tests which we could then compare to already existing research. Our exploration of climate change in urban environments did not take place due to covid-19 restrictions. The project ‘Global Heat’ took the locations of the different schools as starting points to look at the different issues global warming causes at each of them. For instance, how does the rising temperature influence water levels or the melting of glaciers, which role do volcanoes play in climate change. We were unable to explore the effects of climate change on densely populated areas confronted with mobility and ecological problems, and only got a limited view of the role of the EU in this debate. In the first year of this project teachers of all four partners worked together composing teaching materials and elaborating exchange weeks to help their students understand the complexity of this topic. Unfortunately, due to covid we never got beyond the first two teacher meetings and a lot of online collaboration between teachers and students. During the second school year we repeatedly attempted to reschedule the exchange weeks and held multiple online meetings, but any mobilities were cancelled time after time, so we had to apply for an extension. We couldn't visit the European Parliament. Instead we organised a digital interactive presentation of the European Parliament with time for discussion. After covid restrictions were lifted in September 2021 we managed to organize three out of four planned exchange weeks and a final teacher meeting. We are very pleased to have taught our students valuable lessons about our changing climate. They were able to observe first-hand its effects on an Austrian glacier, as well as on salt and fresh water in Sweden. They studied the impact of a Sicilian volcano on global warming. Our secondary goals of fostering strong intra-European connections and performing scientific work abroad were also achieved. Unfortunately, we were unable to explore the effects of global warming on urban environments during the planned Belgian exchange week. Our students were able to increase their own knowledge and skills to conduct small scale scientific research in this matter and compare it in time and place. The exchanges were organized in such a way that diverse groups of students were involved in the different exchange weeks and so varying mixed working groups were composed. They were connected by their motivation to study a certain area or phenomenon and focused their scientific research on it. Overall, we are convinced this was a successful project, even though hindered by severe consequences of the covid-pandemic. Our students and teachers will continue to work together on these topics though in follow-up projects and will as such, even deepen their understanding of the influence of environments on the issue of global warming.