Climate Service Learning: Schools in Action! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Climate Service Learning: Schools in Action!

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 : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social entrepreneurship / social innovation; Environment and climate change; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The project involves six schools from Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Germany, Greece and stems from the idea that Service Learning is a methodology that can revolutionize our teaching practice, the way our students learn while providing benefits to local communities. We believe Climate Service Learning is a powerful tool to fight climate change from schools, to build responsibility and awareness, to create links with local communities, to enhance opportunities for learning and developing personal and social skills, as well as to strengthen the social and responsible dimension of scientific subjects like natural sciences, chemistry, biology, physics, economics and many others.
The effectiveness of the SL methodology has been widely proven in the USA and in South American countries, but in Europe it is little known and, when known, like in Spain, it is mostly used for social purposes, but seldom in the environmental field.
The Service Learning methodology is a form of experiential education where learning occurs through a cycle of action and reflection as students seek to achieve real objectives for the community and deeper understanding and skills for themselves. Service Learning takes off from the real needs of the local / global society; the students identify a problem, and then search for solutions, which they will put into practice themselves in collaboration with local agents. With Climate Service Learning we will be able to face problems we have to deal with in our daily lives while at the same time empowering our students with the awareness that change is in their hands.
By getting to know a wide range of different problems related to climate change in each country, they will realize how the challenge of climate change has both a local dimension (as we will see during the meetings in the different schools and communities) and a global one,. Teachers often struggle to convince the students that every small step we take towards a more eco-friendly behavior can really make the difference, sometimes the families themselves do not believe in the importance of changing even simple daily habits. This kind of skeptical attitude can be easily overcome thanks to the European dimension of the present project: by seeing what is being done in the different schools and communities, by taking part themselves in Service Learning initiatives, which they will chose and plan themselves, they will understand the importance of small steps, and they will become ambassadors in their own schools, families, communities. Service Learning gives great importance to reflection and we will be able to develop and deepen it not only during the meetings but also during the online activities which we will carry out in the Twinspace. Documentation of all the SL activities, also from the scientific point of view, with photos, videos, data and charts, not only in the Twinspace, but also on the schools’ websites, on the local newspapers, radio broadcasts and TVs will really make the difference in overcoming this skeptical and nihilistic attitude that some pupils and families may still have.
The 7 LTTAs will be organized as follows: the first one will be a short-term joint staff training event, where from two to three teachers from the partner schools will learn the Service Learning methodology and will train on the use of the eTwinning platform in all of its aspects. Subsequently, we will have 6 short-term exchanges of groups of 14 to 17 year-old pupils, one in each country, where we will focus on getting to know the different UN Sustainable Development Goals and to finding information, getting ideas and taking action in different fields related to making our schools and our local communities more sustainable. We will deal with several different issues: the importance of the three Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) in Spain, the effects of climate change on natural and cultural heritage in Greece, the problems linked to plastics in the Ocean in France, how promoting green mobility solutions can help reduce pollution and make our cities more eco-friendly in Denmark, how to move towards responsible and sustainable consumption in Germany, how agriculture and the food supply chain can help reduce our carbon footprint in our daily lives in Italy. The final event in Italy and the completed Twinspace will show the participants, all members of the Schools and local communities what Service Learning can do to enhance pupils’ skills while making them better citizens and providing a service to the community in order to fight climate change in our daily lives. By making the close relationship between curricular learning and Service learning public, by posting infographics and videos which give data about learning outcomes and personal experiences, by sharing our evaluation rubrics and the results of our focus groups, we will make it easier for more teachers and school coordinators to embrace this new, really effective method.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 197862 Eur

Project Coordinator

Istituto Tecnico Commerciale Statale e per Geometri “Enrico Fermi” & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Midtfyns Gymnasium
• 1st Junior High School of Markopoulo
• lycée charles de foucauld groupe de l’estran
• IES CARDENAL PARDO DE TAVERA
• Thor-Heyerdahl-Gymnasium