Virtual Interactive Resources and Tools in Universal Education-of the Sea Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Interactive Resources and Tools in Universal Education-of the Sea

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The VIRTUE-s project focused on developing digital and practical tools to increase the quality of teaching natural sciences using ocean-based examples. The partnership consisted of 6 teachers (school partners) and 8 researchers from Sweden, Germany, Spain and USA.
The target groups were teachers and pupils, especially our school partners and their senior high school pupils because they contributed first-hand experience and feedback with our developed methods and tools. The pupils were studying either biology, natural science, language, social science or followed the maritime vocational programme (seafarer).

A media literacy workshop was implemented for project partners. The acquired media literacy knowledge helped school partners train their pupils in how to produce videos on a scientific subjects, which was an essential part of intellectual output (IO4). Within IO4, pupils performed fouling experiments – studying biodiversity and growth of marine organisms using scientific methods – on discs that had been placed in the ocean and analysed the results using outputs from the project (e.g. ID plates, biodiversity calculator tool). The pupils shared their results on biofilm and biodiversity in presentations, videos and via direct exchange (intercomparison of data from different regions) through 64 video conferences, using English as a common language.

This experience not only increased media and ocean literacy (SDG14) in pupils and teachers but also stimulated a team-based collaborative approach (SDG4), language skills, geographical comprehension, global and local environmental awareness and increased social competence. The pupils now understand that even if we are far apart we can still work together in a project and learn a lot from each other. Pupils for the first time wrote reports presenting own analysed data. This taught pupils documentation, as it gives them a chance to reflect on and be critical about their findings. Pupils reported that they learned how to express themselves in a foreign language, how to digitally work and communicate with others – from different countries – and present results (SDG4) via the internet. Pupils have become more acquainted with scientific concepts and technical terms and have been taught using marine examples instead of only terrestrial. Biofouling was a new concept in some schools and also the use of species counting in combination with statistics. All these acquired skills will be of major benefit in the pupil’s future careers (EU goal).

The partnership developed a number of outputs, such as teaching resources (IO1) (e.g. tutorials for quantitative analysis methods, species identification plates); further development courses (IO2) for 136 in-service teachers in Sweden, Germany, Spain and USA, where the impact was learning how to use marine examples and project-based learning in their classrooms; the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC, IO3) “Promoting ocean literacy and project-based learning by monitoring biodiversity” attracted 365 teachers and educators from 27 countries, where the impact was learning how to use marine examples and project-based learning in their classrooms; the biodiversity calculator (IO5) was constructed to make direct links between mathematics content and ecological content. The impact developed pupil’s ability to practice (interactively on the web) how numbers associated with biodiversity can shift the values of measures of biodiversity. The project website (virtue-s.eu, IO6) is available in Swedish, German, English, Spanish, Catalan and contains all downloadable (e.g. a handbook “Making a video on a scientific subject”) and interactive resources. Due to all languages, the project website now has a wider global reach.

Due to the pandemic a face-to-face summer school for pupils of the partner schools was converted into a virtual activity named OCEAN, an “Online Classroom for Education And Networking”, focusing on international collaborations on marine biology topics. The programme ran for 6 weeks (once weekly) and 75 pupils participated .
260 pupils from our partner schools took part in IO4 and OCEAN.

The project impacted cross-curricular (English, Biology and Arts) teacher collaborations. This is beginning to have an impact on the curriculum at these schools, where schools shifting toward (or increasing) the use of project-based learning as a method for teaching science content. Due to the project, teachers felt better equipped and more confident using ICT tools and to converse in English.

Other EU projects have identified gaps, such as lack of teacher training and ocean-based resources, and these gaps have been filled by our project.
Our project was innovative in demonstrating a clear model for project-based learning internationally and demonstrated how changes in pedagogical approaches to science enhanced the engagement of teachers and pupils in collaborative education efforts.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 296160 Eur

Project Coordinator

GOETEBORGS UNIVERSITET & Country: SE

Project Partners

• ASSOCIACIO SUBMON: DIVULGACIO, ESTUDI I CONSERVACIO DE L’ENTORN NATURAL
• HELMHOLTZ ZENTRUM FUR OZEANFORSCHUNG KIEL
• HOGSKOLAN VAST
• Öckerö seglande gymnasieskola
• University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
• Hebbelschule Kiel
• Fundació Escoles Garbí