Climate is changing: chance or responsibility?
Project presentation
In spite of being an up-to-date subject in schools around Europe nowadays, climate change is not something pupils are aware of in their everyday lives, nor the social changes they entail. Children need to be taught about it - and that's what science teachers - geography teachers, biology teachers, history teachers - all around Europe are trying to do.
But it will certainly be much more relevant to pupils if they can measure climate change themselves, if they can compare results from all over Europe and come up - with their teachers help – with ways to cope with it, identifying real impacts of climate change on day to day activities. To be able to do that, our pupils must be ready to deal with climate labs or meteorological stations in a scientific way and teachers must be prepared for the challenges of hands-on science teaching. Another way of stating the same ideas is to say that curriculum knowledge about climate change has to be relevant to our students. Teachers should be able to convey it through experimental activities that both appeal to the common experience of the students and foster scientific attitudes towards the world and their future experience.
Climate change data and their effects can not be collected and analysed singularly in European countries but have to be compared transnationally, even if the European borders are still not very generously calculated as climate changes are eventually a global problem. That is why we are very happy to have the Azores as our Portuguese partner since the archipelago is far off industrial civilisation and the European mainland. This provides us with the opportunity to find out about climate change that are not directly connected to the European mainland. Moreover our other partners cover the south, the west and the east of Europe and with Germany and Poland we also include central Europe. Regrettably we couldn't find a partner in the northern European countries.
Working on this topic only makes sense if students have the opportunity to exchange their findings.
Climate changes are not a prime curricular topic at school. All the factors that contribute to climate changes are paid little attention to and not looked at intercurricularly. As climate change is generated by many causes and is a complex matter, the project becomes innovative by offering students an opportunity to get more deeply into the subject and work intercurricularly on it. That is how we would like to achieve an awareness in our students' minds, an awareness that it is up to every single human being to contribute to less pollution and rethink their behavior in terms of consumption.
The process of achieving awareness is gradually build through a series of steps which will led students to experience and understand the way they can give their contribution to save the Planet from a catastrophe.
But it will certainly be much more relevant to pupils if they can measure climate change themselves, if they can compare results from all over Europe and come up - with their teachers help – with ways to cope with it, identifying real impacts of climate change on day to day activities. To be able to do that, our pupils must be ready to deal with climate labs or meteorological stations in a scientific way and teachers must be prepared for the challenges of hands-on science teaching. Another way of stating the same ideas is to say that curriculum knowledge about climate change has to be relevant to our students. Teachers should be able to convey it through experimental activities that both appeal to the common experience of the students and foster scientific attitudes towards the world and their future experience.
Climate change data and their effects can not be collected and analysed singularly in European countries but have to be compared transnationally, even if the European borders are still not very generously calculated as climate changes are eventually a global problem. That is why we are very happy to have the Azores as our Portuguese partner since the archipelago is far off industrial civilisation and the European mainland. This provides us with the opportunity to find out about climate change that are not directly connected to the European mainland. Moreover our other partners cover the south, the west and the east of Europe and with Germany and Poland we also include central Europe. Regrettably we couldn't find a partner in the northern European countries.
Working on this topic only makes sense if students have the opportunity to exchange their findings.
Climate changes are not a prime curricular topic at school. All the factors that contribute to climate changes are paid little attention to and not looked at intercurricularly. As climate change is generated by many causes and is a complex matter, the project becomes innovative by offering students an opportunity to get more deeply into the subject and work intercurricularly on it. That is how we would like to achieve an awareness in our students' minds, an awareness that it is up to every single human being to contribute to less pollution and rethink their behavior in terms of consumption.
The process of achieving awareness is gradually build through a series of steps which will led students to experience and understand the way they can give their contribution to save the Planet from a catastrophe.