About the project

Details

ECOSTAND project aims to truly influence the truly influence the knowledge and development of students’ attitudes and establish a culture of disaster prevention by providing innovative and game-based curricula, training materials and methodological guidelines for teachers including environmental issues and disaster prevention. It also aims enhancing pupils` active participation in the learning process through an experiential simulation game.

 

Motivation

Global warming is a phenomenon of climate change characterized by a general increase in average temperatures of the Earth, which modifies the weather balances and ecosystems for a long time. It is directly linked to the increase of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, worsening the greenhouse effect.

The greenhouse effect is a natural phenomenon. However, the increase in greenhouse gases is linked to human activities. It is thus no surprise that the world's leading climate scientists believe that human activities are very likely the main cause of global warming since the mid-twentieth century. As a result of climate change we are currently witnessing an increasing series of devastating climate disasters in various parts of the world: forest fires in Korea, Argentina, the United States of America, Turkey, France, and Portugal, floods in Afghanistan, Australia, India, Pakistan and Thailand, the earthquakes in Afghanistan, Fiji, Indonesia, and recently in Turkey and Syria, the Tonga volcanic eruption, cyclones and tornados, drought, heatwaves, snowstorms, landslides. The scale of destruction and devastation is new and terrifying: huge number of human lives taken and high social and economic impact.
At the individual level, the impact can often be felt physically, mentally and emotionally. Natural disasters cause destruction of property, loss of financial resources, and personal injury or illness. After experiencing a natural disaster, many individuals develop severe post-traumatic stress disorders or withdraw into states of depression. Many local communities lose so much in economic resources that recovery becomes difficult, if not almost impossible.

As shown in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) 2015-2030 of the UN school education as having important impact. School education should include environmental and disaster-related content material for all ages focusing on knowledge on preparedness of institutions and organizations to meet basic needs: rescue survivors, take care of the injured, put out fires, control leaks of hazardous substances, provide shelter, water, and food for victims, evacuate the population to safer places, reestablish communication systems, restore public order and security, and identify and dispose of dead bodies, among others, as well as development of attitudes of students who are actively engaged in environmental protection and disaster prevention through the teaching-learning process at school and the ties pupils have with their families and communities.

 

Priorities

Climate change is affecting every country, quality of our life and it will continue to do so, unless we try to educate ourselves and our children to make changes in our lives that will impact the environment less.

More and more global warming produces, directly or by its effects unexpected and extreme meteorological phenomena which sometimes result in natural disasters, such as the recent earthquake in Turkey, heatwaves, draught and forest fires in Greece, France, Spain, Romania, strong storms, flooding and land sling, snows in Italy, Greece, etc.

Such natural disasters produce loss of human lives and social and economic destabilization in the respective countries and regions.

Knowledge, skills and attitudes on climate change preventive actions and appropriate response, behaviours and attitudes in case of natural disasters should be part of formal education in order to decrease the number of victims, of injuries, of post traumatic and anxiety disorders that may occur in such cases. They also help develop the sense of responsibility, solidarity and sustainability through creation of informed awareness. School students should be motivated towards an environment-friendly lifestyle by internalization of proactive attitudes so that to influence adoption of better climate policy.

Environmental education is very fragmented in EU schools, lacking a holistic approach, while education about risk disasters management is completely absent in most European school education. In response to these needs the ECOSTAND project develops a complex, innovative and interdisciplinary game based training programme ”Natural Disasters Response and Climate Action” for secondary school teachers and a Minecraft online game which is conceptualized specifically to support the delivery of natural disasters' response-related challenges, addressed to secondary school pupils. The game is created together with workshop guidelines for its integration in class.

The game based methodology and the educational tools elaborated during the project will substantially contribute to the environment and fight against climate change education, as well as to acquisition by students of key competences and of digital skills.

The project will enhance sound and pro-active attitude towards environment, self, peers and community and will strengthen social and civic values.