EduChange methodology

Abstract

“Making Knowledge Together – Addressing Climate Change through Innovative Place Based Education and Blended Learning” is the official name of the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project, that we (project team members) used to call simply EduChange. The project aimed to innovate our way of teaching about Climate Change in both local and global perspectives via the field course methodology. It brought together students and teachers from four European universities – University of Malta, Utrecht University (the Netherlands), Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim (Norway), and Palacky University Olomouc (Czechia) with an idea, that teaching and learning in the field is often rather traditional and teacher-led. Through EduChange, we wanted to transform field courses into innovative, creative learning environments in which teachers, students and pupils can create knowledge together. We believe that supporting innovation and creativity can be achieved via international partnerships and inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches. Our consortium includes partners from various European countries with various geography-related backgrounds (environmental science, geography for teachers, urban geography, geoinformatics, island studies, biology, science teacher education, etc.) but with a common objective to innovate the way we teach about climate change. Our partnerships with local high-schools further strengthened the role of higher education regionally as well as channelled the knowledge from universities towards the public (i.e. with upper secondary school students). The place-based education adopted during the project assumed the creation of knowledge together – connecting scientific perspectives with local knowledge and daily experiences. The overarching topic was Climate Change education with the focus on the issue of water in the environment. By coming from various geographical and socio-economic environments, our student as well as four university cities experience different issues related to Climate Change and water. Topics can reach from lack of fresh water on Malta via flash floods in Olomouc or extreme precipitation in Trondheim to water management/seawater rise in Utrecht. We strived for practical field courses that stimulate deeper learning. In the project, we used a student-centred approach and a well-balanced mix of innovative teaching methods for field- and place-based education, such as blended learning or modern playful and multimedia methods. Our students experienced both roles – being students during the field courses and being teachers during their local activities with secondary school students in their home countries. We believe that this mix of roles and experience created the atmosphere where members of the project create knowledge together and experience innovative teaching methods from the teacher’s and the learner’s perspective. All the teaching materials created during the project by both teachers and students are published online under open licence at the project webpage – www.educhange.net. Our teaching methods include short educational clips (educlips), online multimedia maps (StoryMaps), GeoGames, virtual reality tours, and many more. All of these methods are born of the digital era and are highly valuable supplements to traditional classroom lectures, lab work and group discussions. The authors of the respective chapters of this book are members/former students of the EduChange team, and it has been my pleasure to work with them for the past three years. There fore, I take this opportunity to thank all of them for their contributions to this book and all the hard work they gave to the EduChange project. It is also my pleasant duty to gratefully acknowledge the support by the Erasmus+ project EduChange (no. 2017-1-CZ01-KA203-035519) funded by the European Union. Without this support, this book, nor the whole adventure, would never be alive.