Geoheritage and climate change opening the secrets of home Erasmus Project

Project Title

Geoheritage and climate change opening the secrets of home

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 2015

Project Topics

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

Project Summary

GEOHERITAGE AND CLIMATE CHANGE OPENING THE SECRETS OF HOME
Climate changes have both social and economic consequences and impacts on geodiversity. The project will support high school teaching that will lead to improvements both in the perception of climate and environment changes in Europe and in the appraisal of geoheritage.
The main objectives of the project are developing basic and transversal skills using innovative methods, enhancing digital integration in learning, teaching, training and youth work at various levels and strengthening quality through mobility and cross-border cooperation. The main goal is to understand climate change as a multidimensional phenomenon and to recognise both the natural and the human induced aspects of it. The main objective is to utilize the unique geoheritage of the Geopark areas for studying the climate change. The project will reveal the local “secret” values for the students and strengthen the understanding of the geological and human history of their home region and their roots.
The participants are Vaala Municipality/Vaalan kunnan sivistyspalvelut (the coordinator), Vaala Upper Secondary School/Vaalan lukio, Humanpolis Ltd/Rokua Geopark, Verbania City/Provincia del Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, I.I.S. Lorenzo Cobianchi/Vocational and Technical School and the University of Turin/Universita Tegli Studi di Torino. The other organizations that are involved in the project are the University of Oulu (the Department of Geography), Geological Survey of Finland/GTK, LIFEPeatland Use-project coordinated by Natural Resources Institute Finland and Parks and Wildlife of Finland/Metsähallitus, EGN and GGN.
In three years short-term exhanges (7 days) for the groups of pupils (16 students from Vaala, 22 students from Verbania, 4 teachers and professionals) are established every term.
The participants in the exchanges will be students and teachers of the project schools and professionals from the partnership organizations (Rokua Geopark, Sesia Val Grande Geopark and the University of Torino).
The purpose of the project is to enhance students’ knowledge and understanding of sustainable development by studying and researching climate change in an international context and special context, such as the one offered by Geoparks. Climate change as a phenomenon is difficult for many students to understand, even if it deeply affects their everyday life.
Transnational exchanges and visits in different geomorfological and cultural environments deepen the fundamental understanding of the climate change, both in a local and global perspective. Transnational exchanges also enable to collect scientifically relevant data series and implement and practice wider range of learning and research methods. Rokua Geopark and Sesia Val Grande Geopark offer two very different but pedagogically outstanding environments to study and explore the climate change. The profit of these two areas is the unique geological and cultural heritage which create a natural laboratory for investigating long and short term climate change as well as for discussing about the effects of climate change for nature and culture.
International exchanges with the hosting of pupils in the families and the cooperation by modern technology support language learning, and strengthen language, learning and social skills. To know other cultures better also assists to understand oneself better, which is one of the key factors for socially sustainable development.
Results benefiting the students:
Learning of research methods (ia. dendrochronological methods, species identification methods, soil profile measurement, climate data analysis, digital modelling, GIS based field exercise methods, peat analysis and mire drilling, archeological methods, georesources exploitation, glaciers retreat study). Among the concepts explored in order to get new knowledge: plate tectonics and Alpine orogenesis, geological time, geomorphology, volcanism, rocks, georesources and local culture. At the end of the project we started our co-operation with the University of Lapland concerning environmental art. The purpose was that climate change could also be understood emotionally. Due to the successful results of the project we are going to apply for a new project in order to deepen the emotional perspective. The co-operation with the University of Oulu will be developed in terms of the evaluation of the knowledge, skill and attitudes as to climate change.
After the end of the EU funding, the international cooperation between schools and geoparks will continue. The approach of integrated teaching, the curriculum at school, and the educational materials will be maintained. After the project they can be used freely and we hope that we can go on with the project in the future, enlarging the number of the participating countries.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 179771,33 Eur

Project Coordinator

Vaalan kunnan sivistyspalvelut & Country: FI

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO
• I.I.S. LORENZO COBIANCHI
• Humanpolis Oy
• PROVINCIA DEL VERBANO-CUSIO-OSSOLA
• Vaalan lukio