Natural Nations Goes Digital Erasmus Project

Project Title

Natural Nations Goes Digital

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Natural sciences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Covid-19 has sparked changes in how we deliver training and teaching around the world, leading to new opportunities for distance learning and enabling more teachers to enhance their professional development. It has highlighted the crucial role of healthy natural environments for our planet and emotional wellbeing and mental health for ourselves. Research shows that school grounds can be a haven from stress and are places that help build resilience in childhood and adolescence, encouraging pupils to re-engage with school.
The need for online training for teachers on outdoor learning is clear – LtL webinars and online workshops were viewed more than 20,000 times over the summer of 2020. A review of Erasmus + KA2 projects shows a gap in programmes that link digital learning to hands-on nature experiences as part of everyday learning – key to our proposal.
We are seeing pupils lose their skills to interact effectively with their peers and teachers, forgetting key skills of being in school. An example of outdoor learning impact during the pandemic comes from Learning through Landscapes’ (LtL) My School, My Planet (MSMP) project, where pupils returning to school spend time outside undertaking nature-based activity.
‘This has been a fantastic experience for our children so far. They have enjoyed and fully participated in every activity. The children are very focused and engaged when working outside and their team work and confidence has already grown. One of our children in particular, who struggles to form positive relationships due to social and emotional needs, has benefited enormously by being actively engaged throughout the whole day and bonding with his classmates. We have noted a marked improvement with his social skills and confidence, when working on this project.’ (teacher, October 2020)
Our UK partner schools, is part of the MSMP project and is keen to develop its outdoor learning offer having seen the impact it can have.
Natural Nations Goes Digital (NNGD) builds on the current Erasmus+ National Nations (Nat Nat) programme to make the most of existing partnership and outputs, ensuring value for whilst are introducing new partners with fresh eyes to help develop this new programme.
Nat Nat provides simple online tools for schools to share the benefits of wildlife in school grounds, with a particular focus on birds and pollinating insects. The programme aims to change both the culture and physical grounds of schools, but currently lacks an interactive platform to use the resources without the 1-2-1 support of environmental educators.
NNGD project objectives:
1. To build on learning and resources developed over the Nat Nat project to create innovative and interactive online training packages that include outdoor learning.
2. To create learning materials that engage teachers and pupils where they cannot receive in-person training from external providers.
3. To develop a package that combines the best of online training and outdoor activities.
We will achieve this by:
1. Working with Nat Nat and new partners, we will run the two projects in parallel so that learning feeds in and out of each project, resulting in higher quality outputs.
2. Engaging at least one school from each nation to be partners or associated partners so that the new online packages can be developed, tried and tested.
3. Using the knowledge and skills gained by partners through greater use of online systems throughout the pandemic. This includes project communication and meetings as well as output delivery.
Project outputs:
• Training for teachers to link each country’s curriculum to birds and pollinating insects.
• Training for teachers to make their school grounds bird and pollinator-friendly.
• Training for teachers to use the online teaching resources for use with pupils.
• Teaching resources for pupils aged 10 – 14 on birds and pollinators and their needs.
Methodology
• Review Nat Nat resources and putting together training packages.
• Work with teachers to understand the resources currently used and which online learning they find the most useful.
• Review online platforms used by each organisation.
• Build on resources developed through Nat Nat to incorporate them into new training or develop new approaches.
• Approaches could include:
o Interactive workshops
o Integrate Nat Nat videos into wider training programmes
o Integrate outdoor learning into training for teachers via self-study outdoors
o Outdoor lesson activities for pupils
• Review activities and training with schools before launching them on the partners’ websites.
With the new experience of the potential of online learning, we believe we need to create a learning experience that is much more creative and interactive and in Nat Nat and NNGD will enable us to reach and engage those who might otherwise look at other, inside-based learning on offer.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 135339 Eur

Project Coordinator

Learning through Landcapes Trust & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Hellenic Ornithological Society
• Millbrook Primary School
• BirdLife Malta
• Sociedade Portuguesa para o Estudo das Aves
• SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA DE ORNITOLOGIA SEO