According to UNESCO, education is a key factor of the global response to climate change because it can increase knowledge, enable informed decision-making and encourage behavioural changes for adopting sustainable lifestyles; in this regard, a teacher’s role in developing climate change awareness is crucial. The threat of climate change and the ongoing pandemic have highlighted the need for the digital transformation of education. The European Commission maintains that teachers need to develop solid digital literacy skills in both creating digital education content as well as in digital teaching methods. In climate change education, teachers face a number of barriers: some of them are related to the multidisciplinary nature of climate change or students’ misconceptions, but arguably the most important barriers stem from the lack in teacher training for developing the necessary skills when delivering instruction for climate change. The Erasmus+ project entitled “Towards a new model of Teachers’ Professional Competence Development on Climate Change” (Acronym: ClimaTePD), offers a solution to this problem: its overall goal is to help in-service secondary teachers in developing digital literacy and climate change teaching skills as means for enabling their students to build awareness about the global threat of climate change. ClimaTePD will have a duration of 24 months and its Consortium consists of five partners: the Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH, Coordinator, Greece), Universitat de Barcelona (UB, Spain), Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski (SU, Bulgaria), Friedrich-Alexander-Universitaet Erlangen Nuernberg (ILI-FAU, Germany) and Hacettepe Universitesi (HU, Turkey). FORTH has extensive experience in EU funded projects, both as coordinator and as partner, and holds a broad expertise in various areas of educational methodologies and social innovation, with a particular focus on the dimension of school education and ICT as a tool for enhancing learning practices. SU, UB and HU have strong pedagogical backgrounds and expertise in teachers’ training focussing on STEMM oriented inquiry-based learning (IBL) and technology-enhanced learning (TEL). ILI-FAU has extensive experience in promoting innovation in digital learning environments and pedagogical approaches such as IBL, problem-based learning (PBL) and game-based learning (GBL) in all educational levels. ClimaTePD aims at: (1) the creation of an open access online platform for in-service teachers’ training; (2) the development of a Guideline Handbook for teachers' good practices on climate change education; (3) the development of a digital repository on climate change education consisting of digital scenarios and other educational activities and resources and; (4) the development of a set of policy proposals related to policy and curricula design. The project will be divided into 4 phases: (1) Preparation: investigating, analysing and mapping the state of affairs regarding the dimensions of climate change education and digital skills into secondary teachers professional development schemes (TPD); (2) Development: developing the project’s learning material in the context of secondary teachers’ training activities via IBL and gamification principles for their TPD on climate change education and digital teaching methods; (3) Deployment and Evaluation: implementation and the evaluation of the project’s training activities for climate change education and digital skills via IBL and gamification, with the participation of 250 in-service teachers; (4) Exploitation and Dissemination: organisation of events in each one of the consortium countries in order to facilitate the visibility of the project and the circulation of the project outcomes. ClimaTePD foresees to have an impact on the design of educational policies, Teachers Professional Development schemes and curricula in secondary education. More specifically, ClimaTePD is expected to improve the effectiveness of teaching approaches and methods for climate change in secondary education at both local and national levels. At the EU level, the project is aligned with key priorities of the ERASMUS+ programme, including environmental and climate goals and as such it has the potential to contribute to wider targets such as to strengthen the profiles of the teaching professions by propagating technology enhanced inquiry learning for teachers’ competence development on the dimension of climate change, and to provide more strategic and integrated use of ICTs and open and distance learning in education.
The project's overall goal was, and remains to be, to help in-service secondary level teachers in developing digital literacy- an integral component of modern day teaching and learning practice requirements, and climate change teaching related skills and strategies as means to enable students to raise awareness and reflect on the effects of the global threat of climate change on their lives and the lives of others from diverse perspectives. This aligns with UNESCO's conclusion that education is a key factor of the global response to climate change because it can encourage behavioral change for adopting sustainable lifestyles. In this respect a teacher's role in developing climate change awareness is crucial. ClimaTePD had specific operational objectives, which successfully guided its development and implementation. These objectives encompassed the creation of an open-access online teacher training platform, the development of a Guideline Handbook for climate change education, the establishment of a digital repository with educational resources, and the formulation of policy proposals related to curriculum design. These objectives have been fully realized, as demonstrated by the project's Intellectual Outputs.
The project's driving force was addressing teachers' limited access to resources and effective strategies for teaching climate change. It aimed to enhance teachers' knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding climate change education in digital environments and integrated curricula. The project provided in-service teachers with tools and resources to boost their professional development within a digital environment. It aimed to facilitate the integration of climate change education into their teaching practices and school activities. Through active participation from teachers across 5 countries, a cutting-edge course grounded in inquiry-based learning (IBL) principles was developed. This course was assessed by practitioners and supplemented with digital resources, Good Practice Guidelines, and Policy Recommendations. As such ClimaTePD addressed the gap in teachers' learning possibilities from a rather wholistic perspective. ClimaTePD has been presented in national and international knowledge sharing fora inc. Scientix, and has been considered as an appropriate approach (due to innovative features), to be used in a Latin America university. Project components are currently discussed/reviewed by the Institute for Educational Policy.