Products
Plastic Free Heroes MOOC
The PLASTIC FREE HEROES MOOC includes training resources and online courses related to plastic waste reduction and recycling through the Inquiry-based Learning (IBL) approach and social activism.
IO 1 State of the Art Report
The state-of-art report is going to define the meaning of environmental education, citizenship education and education for environmental citizenship, as well as the most recent trends and techniques in environmental education in conjunction with citizenship education, the latest best practices and achievements in the field. The main aim is to record relevant educational resources and pedagogical approaches applied in the specific context. Thus, it will try to identify key elements of education for environmental citizenship, raise questions about the quality and accessibility of recent relevant educational fields, and explore gaps for future work.
IO 2 Training needs analysis Report
The training needs analysis report is a comprehensive report that will contain five national cases of the training needs by all the participating countries in PlasticFreeHeroes. The purpose of the report is to provide contextual and cross-country insights about the training needs of the 2 main target groups: 1) school staff and 2) students.
IO 3 Teaching and learning material on plastics
O3 aims at providing all the necessary and appropriate materials to teachers and school staff for introducing and engaging their students and their families to the phenomenon of plastic use and the need for prevention. Furthermore, this module intends to awake awareness of plastic use issues and their ethical, economic, and environmental dimensions in order to appeal to students’ cognitive, emotional and action-oriented sentiments. As such, O3 comprises of subject-specific materials that vary in nature, ranging from multimedia to applied in-classroom exercises. The purpose is to present the topic of interest to the students in an interesting and dynamic way that can capture their imagination and interest firmly from the beginning.
IO 4 PLASTIC FREE HEROES Inquiry-based Learning Module
The aim of the Inquiry-based learning module is to enable students to move from “facts” to real action. The Inquiry-based learning Module will build on a pedagogy that enables students to “learn by making” their own solutions and inventions to tackle plastic use. This output will provide the content of the inquiry-based learning module together with subject-specific guidelines and tools for enabling teachers to apply the inquiry-based learning pedagogy in their classroom and connect it to the issue of plastic use as a means that will bring deeper learning outcomes and contribute to competences such as creative thinking and problem-solving.
IO 5 PLASTIC FREE HEROES Social Activism Module
The Social Activism Module is meant to be complementary to the Inquiry-based Learning Module (O4) and an integral part of the whole curriculum in the sense that it combines what is identified as the two main social attitudes of the future citizen, namely entrepreneurial spirit and social activist mindset. While the first develops valuable skills for survival, the latter ensures these are put to good use for equitable survival for all, rather than personal interest. The PLASTIC FREE HEROES module for social activism will include guidelines and materials tailored for introducing young children to concepts and practices of social responsibility, environmental citizenship and collective social action.
IO 6 Teachers training online course
The PLASTIC FREE HEROES project intends to support teachers in being trained in new, innovative and socially beneficial pedagogical practices, such as youth activism and Inquiry-based learning. Taking into account that educators lead busy and demanding schedules, PLASTIC FREE HEROES wishes to offer them flexible ways of training. The training package designed for teachers participating in PLASTIC FREE HEROES that can support teachers’ varied needs will include training materials through a) face-to-face learning, b) e-learning, and c) self-paced learning.
IO 7 Assessment methodology and validation results
This output will provide the evaluation methodology for assessing the effectiveness of PLASTIC FREE HEROES to increase awareness and sensitivity towards plastic use but most importantly to support the development of the 21st century skills. The second key element of this output is that it will document the evaluation results that will be produced during the pilot testing with secondary schools. The added value of this output is that it will provide a flexible evaluation tool for schools that will adopt the PLASTIC FREE HEROES curriculum and afford teachers with the tools to collect accurate and comparable data on learning outcomes.