TeachINg about climate change in schools whilsT addressINg fake news and constructive journalism Erasmus Project

Project Title

TeachINg about climate change in schools whilsT addressINg fake news and constructive journalism

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The importance of climate change education, not only oriented towards the understanding of climate change and promote “climate literacy”, but also towards promoting action and change, has been recognised worldwide, and both in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement most countries committed to developing educational programmes on climate change.

Furthermore, the students are asking for it. According to the Cambridge Global Perspectives Survey (2020, amongst 11,000 students aged 13-19), for 26% of the students, climate change was their biggest issue the world is facing today (Spain on top with 46%), 96% believe it is important to learn about global issues in school, and 31% say they do not currently get the opportunity to do so (40% in Spain).

At EU level, this year Italy becomes the first country to make climate change education compulsory at all school levels, with 133 hours in their annual curriculum; in Finland, climate change education has been a part of the secondary school curriculum for several years.

Despite these and other EU initiatives, climate change education is still in a very preliminary stage and quality curriculum is hard to find. Teachers often feel they have not received the adequate training: they do not always have up-to-date information and the scientific information is sometimes difficult to communicate or can be overwhelming, with a risk of causing apathy or anxiety among children when the information is not properly handled.

Furthermore, climate change education has often been considered part of science and geography classes only, without focussing much on the personal, social and economic dimension, when there is a need for a more cross-curricular, competency-based approach, stimulating critical thinking and communication.

The Tintin project proposes a different approach to climate education: instead of training teachers in acquiring scientific knowledge and transmit it to their students, it prepares teachers to guide and assess students in their own search for information, its analysis and interpretation, adopting a multidisciplinary and competency-based approach based on the principles of critical and constructive journalism.

In a world of overload of information, climate change and sustainability are often used for political purposes or populist movements and can be the object of misinformation and fake news. Public opinion can be influenced by climate change deniers who have been more effective communicators using social media than eminent scientists. The gap between the knowledge of climate scientists and the public has been growing and finding trustable information has become a challenge. For the younger generations, who are informed mostly – and sometimes exclusively – through social media it is even more important they learn how to find trustable information and detect manipulation.

In a joint effort of 6 secondary schools, a university, an association of environmental journalists, a public governmental institution and an SME from 4 EU countries, the Tintin project will create an open-access online course of environmental journalism addressed to secondary-school students. The students will investigate the most relevant topics of climate change, the misconceptions and fake news created around them, building their hypothesis and conclusions based on the information retrieved and generated from a critical approach. They will learn about journalism, how to do research, prepare interviews, create and edit videos. They will receive verified information from experts and guidance from professional journalists, they will conduct interviews with parents, members of their community or experts about common misconceptions on climate change, will share and debate the results, and propose actions. Teachers will receive powerful open material, as well the guidance and training to implement the course with their students and recommendations to adapt the material to other educational levels.

The expected impact is to support teachers in climate change and sustainability education by innovative resources and ICT tools, facilitating the follow-up and a competency-based assessment and to increase the students’ awareness of climate change and sustainability, but also their digital skills, their critical thinking and communication skills – they will be encouraged to be innovative and proactive, make climate change personal and actionable and inspire others.

Project Website

http://tintin4climate.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 237413 Eur

Project Coordinator

DOCUMENTA CREACIONES MULTIMEDIA AVANZADAS SL & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Asociacion de Periodistas de Informacion Ambiental
• Rigas 45. vidusskola
• TALLINN UNIVERSITY
• Amsterdam International Community School
• CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS MARNI
• Rigas Izglitibas un informativi metodiskais centrs