European Commission supports citizenship projects

© Hannover.de

A tremendous success for the Leibniz Research Centre for Inclusive Citizenship (CINC) at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH): the European Commission has approved four proposed projects and will be providing them with a total of 1.25 million euros in funding. The main thematic focus of these new research ventures, of which Professor Dirk Lange is overall director, will be on climate change and education.

Schools Go Green

What if schools had their own climate strategy? A project called Schools Go Green is seeking to achieve precisely this, because schools play a key role in facilitating both social change and sustainable development. The first step will be to develop approaches for educators so that they can focus more strongly on addressing the environment and ecology as classroom topics, and explore these areas with the children. This input means that pupils will be able to make informed and responsible decisions in their day-to-day lives (e.g. conscious saving of resources, and sustainable decision-making relating to food choices and getting around). The intention is, right from the start, to promote climate awareness that contributes to environmental protection and climate change prevention, taking into account ethical and social aspects. This venture is aimed at schoolchildren up to the age of 12, as well as teachers and head teachers. The organizational set-up behind Go Green is an alliance of seven institutions (including universities and schools) that will be working together on this project.

AGRIPOL

What we eat has an impact in terms of both climate change and biodiversity loss. To help us fully understand these interdependencies and pinpoint alternative courses of action, the AGRIPOL Team – consisting of staff at universities, NGOs, educational institutions and vocational schools – is developing in-service training, using a blended-learning approach, for educators at vocational schools.

The project’s focus is at two different levels. Firstly, it looks at the individual level, exploring different questions such as: how can changes in behavior be initiated? How can new habits – such as a more eco-friendly diet – be sustained in the long term?  Secondly, it also addresses the structural level: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The CAP has hitherto been criticized for having an adverse effect on the environment. The proposed Policy for the period starting 2021 is currently being negotiated. Under the AGRIPOL project, there are plans to develop the substance of the CAP based on the didactical principles of ‘problem orientation’ and ‘lifeworld orientation’ (Lebensweltorientierung): what impact will the EU’s shared agricultural policy have? Is it fundamentally different – more sustainable, for example? Which advocacy groups were involved in its formation?

CiviMatics

The CiviMatics project combine the approaches of political and mathematical education within interdisciplinary courses for student teachers. With illustrative reference to current societal challenges, such as climate change, the aim is to develop new didactic angles for university teacher-training courses. The intention is to educate future teachers of mathematics and the social sciences about how mathematics and politics are interrelated, and to highlight the relevance of interdisciplinary approaches. Within this framework, the mathematical modelling cycle will be complemented by approaches from political didactics in order, for instance, to, establish an approach for normative modelling. This project is a collaborative European effort with partners from Austria, Romania and Norway.

STEPin

The STEPin project aims to help parents become role models for their children in the use of digital media, and to raise their awareness about the many factors involved in misuse of the Internet and the potential dangers of addiction. In both adult and continuing education contexts, approaches – and materials ready for use – will be developed in order to appropriately respond to these issues. These include broadly based online mapping intended to cover general transnational guidelines; they also comprise an extensive collection of materials designed especially to help instructors in adult education to incorporate the issues of Internet addiction and misuse into their teaching.  

(Published in German on 8 December 2020)