The objective we wanted to achieve was to involve European VET learners and trainers in the first international VET competition to explore and generate innovative NbS in order to solve a real-world challenge through VET education. The challenge was launched by the company Agbar, as how to improve urban water management through Nature-based Solutions (NbS) to make the city of ‘Metropolis’ a greener and healthier town for all, which was an invented and imaginary city combining features of a typical city like Viborg (Denmark), Barcelona (Spain) and Leuven (Belgium) so that to jointly emulate our different environmental contexts. The specific objectives (SO) we wanted to achieve were: -To develop innovative NbS through VET education by bringing together VET learners, teachers and schools around a European competition (SO1); -To contribute to achieve 21st century skills by solving a real-world challenge in the water sector (SO2); -To raise awareness about the potential of VET upon which to create real life solutions (SO3); -To improve quality of VET with the use of Challenge-based Learning (CBL) methodology between schools and business sector (SO4); -To facilitate access of companies to creative talent from VET schools (SO5)
The world is becoming more aware of the effects of climate change in our environment and daily life. The Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are considered the best way to facilitate the transition to a more sustainable and lively urban areas to deliver a series of benefits for their inhabitants. In this context, organizations addressed the following needs: -Addressing skills gaps: VET students acquired language, creative thinking, problem-solving, leadership and digital tools, adding their projects to one’s portfolio to demonstrate their capabilities. -Professionalization: water companies are more knowledgeable of the talent of students in creating high-level real prototypes from scratch to give solution to real world challenges, so their perception as potential employees grow. -Contributing to societal needs: students also got high curiosity about the relevance of the environment, especially among those with a background non-directly related to water, who acknowledge the strategic importance of their future careers. Schools are also more aware on the importance of introducing NbS initiatives in the school curricula at long term to build climate-resilient cities from a multidisciplinar approach, although real adaptation takes time