Last project meeting in Turin

The project partners met in Turin in the delightful hospitality of LABC on the 22nd and 23rd February 2023. In this day and a half of work, they reviewed the activities and progress made over the past months, analysing successes, critical issues and challenges that emerged in the different countries. The last activities to be completed before the end of the implementation period, with a focus on conferences and multiplier events, are scheduled in the coming weeks.

The Climate Conference Kit is online

Not only will you find all the instructions and materials to organise a COP conference in your classroom or school, the project partners have prepared plenty of activities to stimulate critical thinking on climate change!
Explore it to find the activities best suited to your school context!

Climate Conference Kit

Don’t forget to share your experiences with other teachers in the I-CAN community.

It will soon be available in all project languages.

I-CAN Community – How to

Joining the I-CAN community is easy.
Here is a short video with instructions.
We look forward to seeing you!

Teaching sustainability with I-CAN Project

Last May and June, LABC was hosted by the technical High School Norberto Bobbio in Carignano (Turin) for a cycle of lessons dedicated to sustainability and to the topics of I-CAN project.  During the lessons, which involved students of second and third grade classes, LABC trainers presented the objectives and results of the project, and discussed important concepts such as climate change, sustainability and responsibility. The students felt involved and expressed their opinion in turn, creating a stimulating and original debate.

Moments dedicated to reflection and theoretical in-depth analysis have been mixed up with practical activities and experiential sessions dedicated to games, creativity and exchange of points of view, also following the methodology of the “Climate Action Guide”.

The lessons – specifically designed to stimulate the students to develop forms of critical thinking to be translated into actions aimed at sustainability and environmental protection- were so successful that they will be repeated in the autumn, in different classes.

I-CAN Transnational Meeting in Lille

The second transnational meeting of the I-CAN project took place in Lille (France) on April 11th – 12th 2022.

This meeting was an opportunity for all partners to share their recent actions in each country, to think back to what has been implemented so far and to start planning the next activities.

We shared where each country was up to, with a description of successes, progress and an overview of how the project was going.

The content of the new toolkit (IO2) was also discussed. This interactive output will provide teachers with pedagogical activities linked with climate action to implement with their pupils. The activities proposed will mainly be focused on behaviour change at school and in the wider community.

We are looking forward to share our work with teachers!

Three days of workshops in Turin

A project on how to transform ecoblabla talks into a praxis of bottom-up change.

A project to teach teachers and to learn from teachers coming the UK, France, Hungary and Italy, to learn together with students and from students how creativity can change lifestyle.

A project on how to develop critical thinking and direct and real action to modify the structural causes that lead to climate change.

Three days of workshops within a Learning Teaching Training Activity

A thought of gratitude for the generosity to all the participants of these 3 intense days.

Special thanks to LABC, which hosted partners and teachers with impeccable organisation.

The Climate Action Guide is online

The partnership worked on this guide to help teachers who want to bring the topic of climate emergency into their classrooms.
To promote critical thinking, to collaborate sustainably and to act justly.
As well as offering ideas for classroom activities, it suggests moments of reflection for teachers to help them become aware of their preparation on the topic.
It will soon be available in French, Hungarian and Italian.

Face to Face training in Italy October 1st-3rd 2021

After two online training sessions in May and July, partners and teachers involved in the I-CAN project will meet for the first time in Turin (Italy) at the end of the week.

During 3 days, the participants from France, Hungary, Italy and United Kingdom will discover the “Climate Action Guide for Teachers, Pupils and Policy Makers” created by the partners and increase their ability to facilitate pupils to think critically, collaborate effectively and act justly in relation to climate change.

The training will also be aimed at increasing the knowledge of each partner’s country context in relation to dilemmas in climate education.

Back in their country, the educators attending the course will deliver classroom Model UN Climate Conferences with their students applying the knowledge, skills and understanding in their own school context.

We are all looking forward to meeting everyone and working together!

Second online meeting with teachers

On Saturday 3rd July, the second online meeting with partners and teachers from all over Europe was held.

During this free training, after some fun activities, the project partners presented some practical working tools to test in school in order to get useful feedback from the teachers that will actually use them.

Then, some videos about the climate change topic have been shared and gathered and teachers reflected on what actually makes a resource a good one to start the conversation about climate crisis in class. What we gathered is that, in general, the resource has to be inspiring, relatable and focused on solutions!

The direct experience of a teacher who organised a COP26-style conference in her class has been very much appreciated by the other teachers as it was full of recommendations, suggestions and practical advice!

It was definitely a very dense meeting: full of inspiration and tools and resources to check and explore!

Some answers to questions that some participants are curious about

Q1: Why just some cities are participating from the UK/Hungary/France/Italy?

O2: Why just some countries participating in this international training. I read somewhere it is promoted by EU.. there are more countries in the EU..where was Germany for example? Or Poland? Slovakia? Belgium? Etc.

Q3:Why the UK is in it when it is not part of the EU..

Q4: Why is this project on just for 2 years? Are we able to solve everything in 2 years?…

Our project, the International Climate Action Network (I-CAN) project has received funding as part of the Erasmus+ funding from the European Commission. There are very many Erasmus+ projects going on across Europe rather than one combined project: here’s the list of successful projects just for our priority area under the funding round in 2020 (I make it over 500 separate projects and involving all countries across the EU).

You can see here the general info about what the EC is looking for, and where we fit:

Part A: General information about the Erasmus+ Programme | Erasmus+ (europa.eu)

Our project was developed to sit within their priorities for environmental and climate goals, and partnership:

Environmental and climate goals: the programme aims to support, across all sectors, awareness-raising about environmental and climate-change challenges.

• Priority will be given to projects aimed at developing competences in various sustainability-relevant sectors, developing green sectorial skills strategies and methodologies, as well as future-oriented curricula that better meet the needs of individuals.

• The programme will also support the testing of innovative practices to prepare learners, staff and youth workers to become true factors of change (e.g. save resources, reduce energy use and waste, compensate carbon footprint emissions, opt for sustainable food and mobility choices, etc.).

• Priority will also be given to projects that –through education, training, youth and sport activities -enable behavioural changes for individual preferences, consumption habits, and lifestyles.

KA201: Cooperation among organisations and institutions, including our priority:

• Strategic partnerships for school education

Partnership is a key part of Erasmus+ and to access this funding, organisations have to design a programme and bring together partners with relevant knowledge/expertise. There can be more partners, but from Liverpool World Centre’s experience and looking at the list of successful projects, 6 organisations (including LWC) is a good number for a project of this size. Our partnership was brought together by Liverpool World Centre based on previous work on other projects and mutual interest/concern.

The UK was allowed to participate because of the timing of when we submitted the application (April 2020). This meant that when the budget for Erasmus+ projects 2014 to 2020 was set and funded (including by UK contribution), UK hadn’t withdrawn from the EU. So it was the last time this funding was open to UK organisations.

Last but not least, definitely is a ‘no’ that the problems will be solved within 30 months of this project! The proposal was worked out in detail (200 pages of it!) and with the different timings and steps, this made most sense (maximum length of any project is 36 months).

image: Persone vettore creata da pch.vector – it.freepik.com