Seeing the World through Nature Erasmus Project

Project Title

Seeing the World through Nature

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: Access for disadvantaged; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

The project aims to improve the quality of early years environmental education of blind and visually impaired children, to develop their interest in nature, enhance their contacts with nature and thereby support them in feeling socially included and to achieve high quality learning outcomes.
In order to achieve this, the project will provide teachers of blind and visually impaired children with innovative teaching materials to enable them to deliver an engaging, enriching programme of environmental education in truly appealing manner. The project will give the opportunity to the teachers to strengthen their skills and confidence when it comes to teaching about nature, to understand and learn how to teach about nature and how to use the outdoor activities to engage disabled pupils in various school subjects.
For visually impaired children the project will develop a mobile application allowing them to learn to recognize bird sounds while spending time outdoors across Europe.
Seeing the World through Nature is based on experiences and intellectual outputs of the completed in September 2018 international Erasmus+ project Empowering Teachers and Pupils for a Better Life through Nature and on the international cooperation between BirdLife Partners engaged in the Spring Alive project, both focused on birds and nature. The transnational dimension of this project is very important, bringing the best examples of how nature based education can deliver profound and lasting learning outcomes to children with vision disabilities from all the partner countries. The transnational cooperation enables best practice in one country to be extended to other countries and provides a simple structure to demonstrate how nature works at local to global levels. It also provides a basis for future international networking.
Activities planned for the 35 months of the duration of the project:
During the first 22 months of the project, the central focus will be on the development of highly effective educational resources, which will enhance teachers’ abilities in providing nature education for preschool and primary school children with visual disabilities. The project activities are designed to benefit from the scientific expertise and educational experience of the staff of the conservation partner organisations combined with the needs of visually impaired learners provided by experts from the Polish Association of the Blind and national experts from the partner countries.
The last year of the project will be dedicated to testing, conducting trainings, multiplier events and disseminating established intellectual outputs amongst the schools, kindergartens, as well as teachers and educators who provide education for blind and visually impaired children from preschools and primary schools in the partner countries and the whole EU (multiplier events and European Conference for BirdLife Partners).
The educational materials which are planned to be delivered in the project are:
1) Set of nature themed educational materials for preschool and primary school teachers of blind and visually impaired children from the partner countries (O2)
2) Mobile application for children with vision disabilities to enable them recognizing birds by their sounds (O3)
3) Template of the teachers’ training (O4) universal for all European countries to provide professional trainings of implementing developed resources for the teachers in question.

54 teachers from preschools and primary schools for children with disabilities will take part in the multiplier events for the teachers from special preschools and primary schools in the countries. Together 80 pupils will participate in the demonstration lessons in all the partner countries. 90 educators, journalists, representatives of the organizations for blind and visually impaired people will participate in the multiplier events for wider public in all the partner countries. 35 representatives from the BirdLife Partners will take part in the European Conference and they will be able to disseminate this project’s results and outputs further to the institutions, which might benefit from them. The intellectual outputs might reach 300 educators of formal and informal education through BirdLife Partners.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 172465 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ogólnopolskie Towarzystwo Ochrony Ptaków & Country: PL

Project Partners

• Irish Wildbird Conservancy
• BIRDLIFE CYPRUS
• Polski Zwiazek Niewidomych
• BirdLife Malta