rAn project: Raising awareness about natural disasters through the development of best practices and serious games Erasmus Project

Project Title

rAn project: Raising awareness about natural disasters through the
development of best practices and serious games

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Natural disasters constitute a global phenomenon and they concern everyone on our planet. Since the problem very often affects EU countries (climate change and natural disasters have no borders) there is a significant positive impact in carrying out the work at all levels, local, national, regional and European level. Fires, floods, earthquakes and landslides are natural phenomena that have concerned humanity throughout the history. Environmental deterioration and pollution as well as other -man made- factors have helped turn these physical phenomena into disasters and the consequences do not only affect infrastructure and property but they cause massive loss of human life.

Children, especially infants and the disabled, being one of the most vulnerable social groups when faced with a natural threat or disaster, have a right to live in safety thus it is the duty of authorities, institutions, communities, families and schools to provide them with adequate protection as well as with proper knowledge and skills to tackle such difficult situations. However, there is one more serious reason apart from children’s natural fragility and vulnerability because of low age: the children of today are the adults of tomorrow thus the consortium clearly considers that disaster risk reduction begins at school, and to make this a reality we need to integrate awareness about natural phenomena and emergency preparedness into the school curriculum in a playful and engaging manner.

Disaster risk reduction and emergency preparedness can be ensured first of all through prevention, namely the design and construction of safe schools, the reinforcement and maintenance of school infrastructure, the development of school safety plans, adaptations for disabled access and so forth. However the context calls for integration of more actions such as:

• developing a “prevention culture” through both actions and attitudes.
• ensuring the right to education in matters of risk reduction, emergency preparedness and in actual disaster situations.
• bringing the wider community together to participate in school activities;
• informing families and the community of the threats and encouraging them to take preventive measures
• a better understanding of the effects humans have on the earth as well as natural phenomena

In addition, teacher’s knowledge and competences and the quality of children’s education are also issues that extend past national boarders in a connected Europe. This is also a direct result of the challenges that the EU27 face to adapt to within the current fast changing technological environment, one of which is the need for a more inclusive and efficient education and training. As such, it requires a European-level approach to provide also the opportunity for all European educators to benefit by increasing their knowledge of ICT technologies and tools, serious games and their use in education and training, especially in relation to children.

The rAn solution targets the European education and training community as a whole by fostering the enhancement of the proposed curriculum and tools. In primary education, for instance, a core concern is when and how to introduce such issues. This decision is important in order not to frighten children and young people, but to empower them to understand, critically engage with and tackle environmental change and natural phenomena. Educators at all levels will also need support and training to deliver quality education about complex, climate related topics in ways which are both relevant to local environmental, social and political contexts, and which meet wider educational targets (e.g. literacy, numeracy, citizenship).

The rAn project mainly aims to develop:
• A “natural disasters awareness kit” and a serious game that promote awareness of young people in the field of natural disasters and measures, tools and practices for either predicting/preventing or facing hazardous situations.
• Learning methodologies and best practices that promote “hands-on” experiential learning scenarios, critical thinking and problem based learning. Such methods draw their content from real-world practices and needs, promote knowledge abstraction, encourage the deployment of state of the art technological tools and methods. They tend to foster the creation of concrete representations for a plethora of science concepts (coding, , mathematics, mechanics etc.) through active role playing.
• Learning scenarios and puzzles that encourage either Computational Thinking (Coding, IoT) principles and processes as well as “smart”, modern and responsible solutions for the aforementioned problem(s) in a digital environment
• An active community of practice for teachers that will be interested in disseminating the aforementioned concepts, tools and practices among stakeholders that come from the field of education.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 239772,43 Eur

Project Coordinator

CIVIC COMPUTING LIMITED & Country: UK

Project Partners

• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL
• NUCLIO NUCLEO INTERACTIVO DE ASTRONOMIA ASSOCIACAO
• ELLINOGERMANIKI AGOGI SCHOLI PANAGEA SAVVA AE
• PANEPISTIMIO THESSALIAS