Following a seven-day field-course about climate change held last March in Olomouc, Czech Republic, students from the Faculty of Education and the Centre for Environmental Education and Research have recently attended a ScienceJam in Trondheim, Norway. This was the final part of the Erasmus + project related to climate change called EduChange, for this year. Six students currently reading for a B.Ed. (Hons) in science education or a Master degree in Education for Sustainable Development, together with Professor Paul Pace and Dr Martin Musumeci, attended a five-day course during which they presented the methodologies which they had tested out with Maltese secondary school students.
The main theme of the EduChange project is “Making knowledge together” and is meant to address climate change through innovative place-based education and blended learning. This is a 3-year project involving the University of Malta, together with Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic; Utrecht University, the Netherlands; and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway.
Students coming from the four different universities presented the lessons which they held in their respective countries and evaluated the feedback received from the school children. This was done through a Pecha-Kucha presentation followed by a whole group evaluation. Each student group worked on the feedback received to improve their lessons and compile them in a compendium that will be available online on the project’s website.
The ScienceJam also included interactive sessions about different methodologies and types of assessment that can be implemented in class during which participants were also given the chance to try out some educational virtual reality games.
Since this project is based mostly on methodologies involving place-based learning, the participants were given some tasks in different locations around Trondheim. Each task involved using different software or apps such as Survey123, WhereYouGo and izi.travel. This allowed the participants to familiarize themselves with apps which they can use with their own students during outdoor educational activities.
This project, ‘Educhange – making knowledge together”, will continue next year with a different set of University students so that a variety of lessons regarding climate change can finally be compiled into the compendium. Next year’s field course will be taking place in Malta and will again be followed by a ScienceJam in Trondheim, Norway.
The project is supported by the Erasmus + Program resources no.: 2017-1-CZ01-KA203-035519