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Environmental Sustainability Training for Children through on-line Simulation, Exploration, and Collaboration
Date du début: 1 déc. 2009,

Acceptance of environmentally-friendly practices, such as renewable energy solutions, is still low facing high resistance by local communities and pointing to the urgent need for environmental education, especially targeting the next generation. ENVKIDS aims to raise awareness on environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation activities among elementary school children through on-line simulation and demonstrations. The stakes are high: modern society cannot afford failure in the environmental education of children. ENVKIDS will deploy explorative pedagogy based on age-appropriate virtual and practical experimentation and mostly graphical interfaces that overcome language barriers and hide potential underlying computational complexity. A blended learning approach will combine in-class instruction, virtual demonstrators, site visits, and on-line collaboration that will enable children to build on each-other’s experiences under the mediation of teachers and in the context of a European school network. The didactical activities will be developed by environmental and pedagogical experts.Foreseen proof of concept pilot activities for children may include: - Natural resource management, the activity will encourage children to explore the current status quo on the management resources such as forests, biodiversity, and water basins, through on-line demonstrations of resource depletion trends and the consequences on climate and quality of life. This pilot will help raise awareness on sensible and sustainable management of resources. - Production and conservation of energy, involving both traditional and emerging methods, such as coal and renewable resources, including the wind, the sun, and waves. On-line demonstrators will be used to show how emerging, renewable energy resources help control pollution. - The contribution of everyday practices to pollution. Problem solving approaches will encourage children to discover mitigation solutions that can be applied to everyday life, including waste and water management, and efficient buildings. Children will describe methods used in their countries, to compare practices, and to get informed about the methods of the future. ENVKIDS does not aim to compete with existing environmental education curricula. Instead, it aims to provide value-adding on-line tools that complement existing practices and promote collaboration among European schools while at the same time they build children’s ICT skills. To ensure maximum impact, ENVKIDS aims to design the proposed ICT-based learning activities for delivery through the channels of existing school curricula, such as field education, in a value adding manner that enhances the learning process, and not as independent, standalone learning modules. Leveraging the existing school curricula facilitates post-project exploitation and adoption of the proposed learning methodologies. The proposed activities will be validated through pilots that will engage primary school teachers and pupils in real-life learning activities through which the children will have the opportunity to use the developed simulators in hands-on lab sessions and to collaborate with pupils in other countries through the proposed school network exchanging experiences and building an awareness of the international nature of environmental sustainability issues. Finally, ENVKIDS aims to support the teaching process by providing good practice recommendations targeting teachers, higher education students majoring in pedagogics, teacher associations, and policy makers on the seamless integration of the proposed solutions into instructional practices to be disseminated through on-line portal services. This comprehensive, vertical implementation approach that reaches all stakeholders in primary education will further facilitate the acceptance and adoption of the proposed methodologies post work plan completion.

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