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Description
This is an innovative sound and nature education project about rivers and climate change. In this project, we are continuing and developing the #515bluehoursatschool environmental education series that we carried out as part of the #rivertheme project. According to our experiences, knowledge about the functioning and role of river ecosystems is too low in the society. In addition, in the summer of 2022, there was a major ecological disaster on the Oder River, which demonstrated the devastating impact of human activity on nature. In this project, we are implementing innovative educational tools to teach children and young people (10-16 years old) about the processes and principles of healthy rivers. The local community needs new knowledge, inspiration and data to look critically at the decisions they make – their own, their neighbour''s or those of the local authorities. School students also need specific technological competences, which are not possible to develop in the current education system in Poland. As part of the project, we carry out interactive sound and nature experiments with an environmental theme, encouraging independent exploration and thinking outside the box. We use tools such as simulations, sound, video and podcasts. We are developing an educational platform where we collect and share materials, creative solutions and good practices from Poland and Iceland. We are implementing the project with an Icelandic partner, ICE WALKERS. Descriptions of the experiments will be available on the platform in Polish and English.
Summary of project results
The project is a response to the crisis of knowledge about rivers and river ecosystems, which was most clearly expressed during and after the Odra disaster. Education in primary schools does not include ecological issues relating to climate change processes, and a rudimentary program of such knowledge is only implemented in 8 grades. The resulting product, an interactive platform with sound and nature experiments, is the first tool in the country that uses creative solutions to present knowledge about rivers in a way that is attractive to young recipients. High-class experts took part in its creation. The project tried to solve the problem of inaccessible scientific language - expert knowledge was reformatted into completely different tools - sound and nature experiments.
As part of the project, the team prepared, designed and implemented the bilingual educational platform Poprad.edu.pl, available free of charge to all users.
The project included two creative workshops: building a musical instrument from waste and a workshop on creating an experiment that may be implemented in the future as an extension of the platform.
The project included visits to exhibitions and classes in primary and secondary schools in Krosno Odrzańskie and Zielona Góra. Over 200 students took part in them.
Products:
- 1 virtual education space (MULTIBOOK "Against the flow" - a guide to creative activity) with a bank of inspiring practices and creative solutions
- 5 educational experiments (in Polish and English)
- 1 creative workshop for a group of 16 participants designing 6 experiments
- 1 creative workshop for a group of 22 participants in building a sound installation
- 1 online meeting for educators
- 1 online meeting with a traveler promoting the MEETING WITH A RIVER experiment
- 1 information campaign in social media
- 3 exhibition places of the "UNDER THE CURRENT" project
- establishing 1 initiative to create the River School, which will use and develop the created educational tool)
- 4 number of engagements volunteers
- 3 project partnerships
- 1 strategic partnership with the Zdrowa Rzeka Foundation,
- 1 visit to Iceland by the project team to collect materials for experiments
- 245 direct project participants
- 4 number of specialized training courses organized for members of our organization
- 9 trained members, volunteers of the organization
- 3 number of schools where classes were conducted
The activities carried out as part of the project led to many benefits, mainly in terms of access to easy and attractive knowledge about the processes taking place in and around rivers.
During the AGAINST CURRENT classes, children and teachers heard about different education standards and experienced modern tools for explaining processes. We can definitely summarize that everyone using the platform expressed regret that there were "only" 5 experiments and they would like more.
The recipients of the activities, including the project environment (partners, supporters) - received an attractive tool enabling them to show their work/passion, and the SOUND POSTCARD created in the experiment - the axis with the mileage of the Odra River - showed selected initiatives of other organizations on the river (e.g. the initiative to create the Lower Silesia National Park). Odra).
The attractiveness of the portal has shown other organizations that it is worth cooperating with experts at a time when fake news is spreading on the Internet and ordinary people do not know where to look for the "truth".