European project ACTION - Empowering educators and community leaders to act on climate change

If education is a powerful tool to prepare societies to the global challenges generated by the climate change, there is an alarming gap between awareness and action on climate change.

To bridge this gap, the « ACTION » project develops an holistic approach to stimulate the acquisition and the development of global and transversal skills on issues linked to the climate change, among the VET providers, the local authorities and the NGOs.

Project Aims

The ACTION project led by the Community of Communes of South aims to empower educators and community leaders to take action on climate change.

The transnational consortium ACTION brings together 10 partners from 9 member countries (FR, PT, CY, PL, UK, TK, ES, IR, GR) is based on the fact that climate change education must take into account the need to provide educators, community leaders and professionals with learning opportunities and up-to-date facts, new and innovative learning processes, cutting-edge resources and digital era tools to empower their learners and citizens as "agents of change" and promote closer links between education and local communities.

More precisely, the consortium works on the following intellectual outputs:

• ACTION Methodological framework
• ACTION Training curriculum
• ACTION Educational package
• ACTION E-learning platform
• ACTION Case study videos

The story so far

During this first year of the project, the consortium finalized the methodological framework responding to the issues and challenges of teaching and learning about climate change; this framework will help VET providers, local authorities and NGOs to develop a culture of sustainability, and define and implement suitable action plans to act on climate change and promote education for sustainable development

It comprises four sections :

1) Climate change in a nutshell, explains why VET providers, local authorities and NGOs should take on a whole- approach to climate action

2) Becoming a climate-ready organisation, outlines how organisations can plan, put into practice, and evaluate own strategies, visions and actions on climate change

3) Integrating climate action into the governance of organisations, their educational and empowerment approaches, and their local stakeholders

4) Taking action and monitoring climate action: presentation of a compendium of local practices on climate action to support organizations not only to be inspired, but also to assess their own climate action process against what has previously worked for other organizations.

The consortium also developed the ACTION training framework defining the learning outcomes to offer a circular learning path to reflect the particular training needs of educators and community leaders. The framework provide a comprehensive overview of training methodology, activities and certification procedures.

The content of ACTION Educational package is under development process. The consortium uses EU frameworks (ECVET, EQF and EQAVET) and designs the training for eLearning environment, for a total of 70 hours.

The training modules defined are the following:

1. Why do we really need to care about climate change?
2. What is climate change adaptation?
3. Becoming resilient about climate change
4. Climate change – how to adapt and mitigate?
5. Climate change - let’s start now!
6. What ‘s climate change got to do with it?
7. Climate change: what can I do?
8. Let’s get digital on climate action
9. Call to action on climate action
10. Building a sustainable community

The results of the project will be accessible as they are developed on the platform dedicated to the project https://action.erasmus.site/

Project Impacts

ACTION is built in cooperation with a local working group bringing together experts, target groups and stakeholders. The project involves over 180 educators and community leaders and 180 learners and citizens, and 300 stakeholders in its activities related with intellectual production, validation, testing, piloting, dissemination and exploitation. A set of 20 case study videos are produced and more than 1500 stakeholders across Europe reached through the project dissemination activities.

Consortium

Leader : Communauté de communes du Sud Corse - FRANCE

European partners :

1. CEDRU - Centro de Estudos e Desenvolvimento Regional e Urbano, Lda.- PORTUGAL
2. Evolve Global Solutions Ltd – UNITED KINGDOM
3. Instituto Para El Fomento Del Desarrollo Y La Formacion SL – SPAIN
4. Csi Center For Social Innovation Ltd – CYPRUS
5. Istanbul Valiligi – TURKEY
6. Meath Community Rural And Social Development Partnership Limited – IRELAND
7. Stowarzyszenie Centrum Wspierania Edukacji Iprzedsiebiorczosci – POLAND
8. Symplexis - GREECE
9. AEVA – Associação para a Educação e Valorização da Região de Aveiro - PORTUGAL