Raising Environmental Awareness Among Young People Erasmus Project

Project Title

Raising Environmental Awareness Among Young People

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 youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; Environment and climate change; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

SUMMARY
The RAISE project “Raising Environmental Awareness Among Young People” is inspired by the “INVOLEN” Project (LLP, 2012-2015) which promoted intergenerational learning through game-based learning, targeting nature conservation volunteers in 5 European countries (Italy, Greece, France, Hungary and Slovenia). RAISE Project applies the methodology developed in the framework of INVOLEN to raise environmental awareness targeting especially youth. RAISE targets schools, NGOs and other organisations committed to environmental education, aiming to promote voluntary work for the protection of nature and the conservation of valuable ecological heritage amongst youngsters. There are two vehicles that the RAISE project uses to achieve this aim: Firstly, joint learning and cooperation between young volunteers; and secondly, game-based learning, which involves the creation of location-based games, playable on mobile phones on site, in protected areas.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
RAISE aims to contribute prevention of natural destruction through increasing the youth’s awareness and active participation in environment related issues. We aim at reaching our global objective through:
– Promoting volunteering for environment,
– Making non-formal education (especially learning in natural environments (LINE)) more attractive to youth especially in the framework of environmental issues,
– Enhancing the preservation of protected areas and environment,
– Developing new curriculum on environment education for youth and promote the culture of active citizenship,
– Adopting innovative solutions to learning that make use of the IT to create interactive learning environments,
– Developing game-based learning opportunities with free access through internet
– Creating a participative learning methodology by the learners and youth workers through interactive face-to-face sessions, field visits
ACTIVITIES
The main activities of RAISE include:
– Identifying competence needs of facilitators (youth workers), and young volunteers
– Development of the learning methodology
– Pilot testing the learning methodology for 75 young people in total (45 in Turkey, 15 in Italy and Greece)
– Development of five online mobile games
– Launching a competition and developing a database for the best practices on conversation volunteering by youth
– Development of Learning Toolkit and Learning Guide
– Undertaking dissemination and exploitation activities/Promoting the project
TARGET GROUP
The target groups of the project include the immediate targets and the wider targets. Immediate targets are those groups from which the training participants were recruited i.e. young volunteers of secondary school age (13 to 18), and conservation experts/teachers. Wider targets include schools and youth groups/NGOs, environmental NGOs, policy makers, local authorities, protected area management bodies.
BENEFITS
Benefits to the target groups were assessed through an evaluation workshop of facilitators; and through a survey of all those participating in the implementation phase. Assumed benefits include:
– for young people: promote the ideas of volunteering and responsible behavior towards nature, hopefully leading to desire, commitment and ability to create an ecologically sustainable future.
– for NGO staff and school teachers: possibilities for career improvement.
– for education institutions, NGOs, policy makers: increase the attractiveness of non-formal education especially game-based learning and LINE through the innovative methodologies proposed by the project, and more accessible to all ages and youth with disabilities.
CHANGE & INNOVATION
The change the project is expected to bring about relates to attitudes of the target groups; their involvement with environmental conservation as active citizens; their motivation to volunteer, and the improvement of non-formal learning methods.
RAISE is innovative
This project is innovative as it involves its target group in the development of the methodology of the training program. Another innovative aspect is that RAISE utilized IT to create interactive learning environments and game-based learning in order to engage learners in the learning process. RAISE encourages learning and volunteering at the same time which would help its target group to develop soft skills such as team building, communication, decision-making, critical thinking besides raising awareness of the environmental issues. In this regard, it is different from projects focusing only on training and volunteering.
THE PARTNERSHIP
Coordinator: Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs, 6th Regional Directorare of the Republic of Turkey, TR
Partner: Pi Pozitif Consultancy,TR
Partner: Yuva Derneği, TR
Partner: PRISMA, Centre for Development Studies, GR
Partner: Institute of Biometeorology (IBIMET) – National Council of Research (CNR), IT
More information on the RAISE project and its results can be found in www.raiseyouth.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 136428,11 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ministry of Watwr and Forest 6. Region & Country: TR

Project Partners

• CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE
• Pi Pozitif Danismanlik
• SYMVOULOI ANAPTYXIAKOU SCHEDIASMOU EREVNAS KAI ORGANOSIS ETAIREIA PERIORISMENIS EFTHYNIS PRISMA EPE
• Yuva Dernegi