European ScienceCamps: Changing Climate, Changing Habitats - Exploring the Impacts of Climate Change on selected Habitats in Europe. The students examined selected ecosystems and their animal and plant species in trinational teams. This gave you a deeper insight into the complex interrelationships between biotic and abiotic factors and intra- and sub-specific interrelationships that served as the basis for interpreting human and climatic influences. Selected habitats in Ireland, France and Germany were analyzed as examples, including heather and forest landscapes in the Parc Nature Regionalen du Morvan in France, coastal regions in Ireland and the Wadden Sea and moors in Germany. In addition to the problem-oriented and experimental acquisition of skills, the pupils should discuss options for action for the habitats in the local and European context. Interviews and guided tours, e.g. with regional scientists and nature conservationists, i.e. people who were able to characterize changes in the habitats. In particular, the interdisciplinary approach, i.e. the networking of chemical, biological and geographical aspects, was very challenging for students. The intensive, joint planning and didactic penetration of the colleagues involved was the basis for the possible success of such a project. International school groups should have the opportunity to examine and analyze relevant ecosystems on site in international school teams and to work on research questions together. The preparation and parts of the evaluation continued via the eTwinning platform. Product-oriented, the students created photo and video documentation as well as a joint research report. The handling of common digital media was supplemented by the use of digital geographic information systems and story maps. The public presentation of the research results was intended to further promote the acquisition of skills.

"“Materials Revolution” is in full swing: more innovative materials, from nanotech to simply ""rediscovered"" and enhanced ones, are patented, manufactured and brought to market every day . Many of them are expressly designed to answer the needs of present and future society such as sustainability in building, mobility, water and energy harvesting/storage not to speak of the progressive integration between technologies and communication contributing to the implementation of the Internet of things, ""smart"" objects being simultaneously sensors and actuators applied to maintenance, health care, security,... Such topics are seldom approached at high school level except episodically, with little or no link to the curricula. However innovative materials offer to high school students a cheap, readily available and safe opportunity to be associated with cutting edge research while performing inquiry and project based experimental work within school labs thus encouraging interest in Science, Technology and, more generally, in knowledge-sharing at international level, leading to positive synergies between education, research and manufacturers and developing active and responsible citizenship. The project partners, four high schools from Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Germany, all had a specific interest in Science Education innovation as Science in all its facets is a main part of their curricula. As a consequence they started developing contacts with associations, local firms, research centres and higher education institutions active in the field of innovative materials from whose collaboration the project highly benefitted with an added EU value. The Project activities, partly implemented within traditional subjects to impact didactical practice and innovate science curricula, involved students along 3 lines: 1)studying and sharing what research is up to in the four countries and around the world within two main areas: a) smart materials and the Internet of Things( IoT) and b) materials for sustainability. 2) experimenting with materials properties to complement curricular topics; 3)devising, testing and prototyping new possible applications for such materials, thus boosting students’ innovators potential and entrepreneurship .The extensive employment of programmable microcontrollers + coding while testing and designing activities plus a plurality of ICT tools for collaboration and communication, trained students for the 21st century high-tech society and its sustainability challenges while bringing to a durable & significant impact on the curriculum and didactical practice thanks to the systematical introduction of home/ flipped labs based on low cost sensors + Arduino. Throughout the project students were actively engaged also in a wide range of dissemination activities: in 'peers to peers' mode older students acted as tutors to both the new entries and junior school pupils contributing to the widespread impact of the project within the participating institutions and the neighbouring ones. Outreach also targeted general public both in local communities -with open days, science shows, seminars, exhibitions - and at national/international level with the participation in Makers Faires and other similar activities.Since teachers are universally acknowledged as key players in Science Education innovation, MoM extensively pursued their professional development with a ""teachers for teachers"" approach both within the participating institutions and in the wider international community. Dissemination was widely spread with workshops and in conferences. MoM was awarded the EU STEM Prize at the Science on Stage Festival 2017. A teachers international Summer school took place at the end of the project with participants fom all over EU. All didactical materials, protocols, guides, lab sheets and templates are available from MoM project website as Open Education Resources (OER). A dedicated Moodle course is under construction on Scientix platform. Moreover to ensure further sustainability and durability of the project results the coordinating school offers to host EU colleagues for short job shadowing experiences (see Gateway to Education). Collaboration with new schools testing some of the materials samples has already started, envisaging the possibility of an enlarged active follow up network .Finally the project had a long lasting impact on the participating institutions as a whole, leading to development of school organization and didactics in an European dimension with an increased awareness of the existing EU initiatives in Education; better disposition towards international collaboration favouring further involvement; increased cultural awareness and multicultural acceptance; new contacts at both local, national and international level were developed that may lead to future projects or collaborations relevant also for students' career awareness."

In Spring 2020, schools around Europe closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Research reports published during this time identified several issues experienced by teachers during the rapid move to online teaching. A survey of 720 Irish, second-level teachers conducted by the TCD team reported that students’ engagement with education decreased significantly during this time. The findings also highlight an associated decline in teaching and learning practices that focus on the development of key skills and competences such as collaboration and communication. This, and other research across the EU, highlights the increased risk of disengagement in schools that serve underrepresented communities, in which existing socio-economic disadvantage is further exacerbated by “digital poverty” among students. Stemming from these research findings, the purpose of this project is to empower teachers to develop pedagogical competences for establishing effective and engaging learning experiences in a digital space, whether as part of a blended experience or wholly online. The project aims to address two key areas: inclusion and digital pedagogical competences, with the main target group being second-level teachers. The approach will be based on the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework (Cast.org), an inclusive approach to teaching and learning that offers all students an equal opportunity to fulfil their potential. This framework offers students different options for accessing, building and internalising learning. It guides teachers to provide multiple means for students to: a) engage with; b) represent; and c) action/express their learning. A key output of this project is to provide a digital overlay to the UDL framework to scaffold teachers’ implementation of UDL principles in remote/blended contexts, such as during school closures. The other project outputs will flow from the development of this digital overlay, to provide further layers of supports for teachers to adopt digital learning principles of UDL. These include: a self-evaluation tool for teachers to identify aspects of the digital UDL framework with which they require support; an associated learning model to support teachers’ creation of digital, UDL activities that include a focus on key skills and competences; Open Educational Resources to scaffold implementation of the framework; and a professional development module which will focus on Area 5 of the DigCompEdu Framework: empowering learners through accessibility and inclusion, differentiation and personalisation. These tools will aim to support teachers and schools to develop inclusive strategies for the digital provision of teaching and learning in their own educational context, with an overarching goal of ensuring high levels of student engagement notwithstanding the mode of content delivery. The project will create a consortium of partners from Ireland, Greece, Belgium and Spain, representing a mixture of second-level teachers and education researchers, with the common aim of harnessing UDL to achieve ‘an EU-wide common understanding of how to make distance, online & blended learning effective, inclusive & engaging' (a strategic priority of the EC Digital Education Action Plan 2021-2027). Our outputs will be developed collaboratively across the consortium, with training and testing of the tools to be carried out at 3 Learning, Teaching and Training events. We will then pilot the tools with our primary target group of second-level teachers, and disseminate the results at a series of Multiplier Events and a Project Conference. Throughout the 2-year project duration, qualitative and quantitative indicators will be employed to monitor the progress, quality and expected impacts of the project and its outputs. During this time, we expect the outputs to positively impact ongoing digital teaching and learning of second-level teachers in partner institutions. The development of a related professional development module and associated resources that will be openly accessible on the eTwinning platform and on the project website provides potential for longer-term impact across the wider networks of educators in Europe. All partners’ existing relationships with European-wide organisations such as initial teacher education providers, professional development networks, school principal networks and publications, teacher accreditation bodies and national or regional curriculum development bodies, will be leveraged in order to reach our goals. Funding for this project will therefore provide an opportunity for transnational collaboration and sharing of expertise at a time of crucial importance in educational development. It will allow us to develop outputs to address some of the gaps that have already been identified through the education-related Covid-19 research, as well as to capitalize on the positives that continue to emerge, as a result of the international shift towards increased use of digital learning.

The TfT project was developed out of the shared recognition of a need to integrate the basic and transversal skills associated with 21st Century Learning (21CL) meaningfully into mainstream secondary school education. Though there is no universally agreed definition of “21C skills”, Voogt and Roblin (2012) — in their comparative analysis of international frameworks for 21C competences — note a common recognition of the importance of skills relating to communication, collaboration, problem-solving, creativity, and technological fluency. These are frequently considered higher-order thinking and learning skills, and they are seen as being transversal (not subject-specific) and multi-dimensional, impacting on attitudes and knowledge. Though the importance of teaching and creating opportunities for students to develop these skills in schools is generally agreed upon, the process of integrating of 21C teaching and learning practices into the classrooms is complex. It involves changes at system and classroom levels, and the provision of adequate resources.To address these issues, TfT focused on developing a transnational model of teaching and learning that helps students to develop their 21C skills – and thereby become effective problem-solvers and self-directed learners. The overall objective was twofold: (1) to develop a coherent model for the integration of 21C teaching and learning (21CL) in schools, in order to scaffold the development of students’ basic and transversal skills in an innovative way; and (2) to simultaneously support teachers with the implementation of this model.This project brought together educators (principals, teachers, researchers, and others) from 4 countries (Ireland, Sweden, Estonia and Germany) and 5 organisations across Europe (four upper primary/secondary schools and one university), with expertise in various areas, to enhance and refine a model of 21CL. The primary participants on the project — 16 teachers and 5 project leaders — aimed to improve both their own skills and practices and to help other teachers develop these practices in their own schools.In order to meet the aims of the project, five different “Learning, Teaching and Training” (LTT’s) workshops were carried out, with one in each partner country, whereby each project partner led sessions for the TfT participants in which they shared their school’s particular expertise in its designated area of 21CL. For example, the first LTT was held in Dublin in the Bridge21 learning centre of Trinity College, and it involved immersive experience with the “Bridge21 model of 21CL”, which as developed by TCD partners and colleagues and served as a starting for the TfT teachers to collaborate and develop their own model. From there, the other LTT’s involved project partners sharing and leading sessions related to assessment, diverse learning styles, constructivist teaching methods, and building communities of practice. Throughout this process, participating teachers were developing their skills and competences in orchestrating and creating active, 21CL experiences, while simultaneously developing a pragmatic, transnational model of 21CL.To measure the impact of this project, questionnaires and interviews – designed to identify the 16 participating teachers’ confidence with and frequency of usage of 21CL, as well as their beliefs about the purpose and usefulness of the TfT project itself – were completed at the start and end of the project. Analysis of this data was undertaken to understand and interpret reported changes in confidence, usage and beliefs of the teachers over the course of the project. Findings indicate that teachers reported an increase in confidence with integrating various 21CL practices in their teaching, as well as an increase in their own classroom usage in all areas of 21CL practices, with some aspects being at the statistically significant level. From the data collected, it was also evident that the teachers believed that their participation in the TfT project had a positive impact on their own teaching practice, as well as their schools overall, and greater educational community.The process of this evolution and the end result has been shared with relevant stakeholders and the European educational community in a variety of ways, including via our open-access project website. In addition, for the sake of longevity and openness, all related publications and results will be housed in perpetuity on the Trinity Access to Research Archive - TARA.

"Context,This project will bring together 6 Special Schools all with a slightly different area of focus and expertise but all school are aware of the social isolation of their pupils. Our project aims to tackle this issue and enable our pupils to play a more productive and involved role in our European society. Ourefforts aim to ensure we raise skill levels of these vulnerable students and have a direct and life longimpact on the connectivity with society in general.Objectives,Our key objective is to improve the social inclusion of our pupils through a range of apporaches, up skill students competencies (through staff training) enabling them tocommunicate more effectively within school, across schools and with society in general. These skillswill lessen their social isolation and enable them to connect better with everyday life. We havedevised a varied and interesting range of training and activities to raise skill levels and challenge all. The development of higher level literacy and numeracy skills are important components of this. Our objectives also include improving key competencies and skills, lessening social disadvantage and breaking down the barriers of disability.Securing these objectives will improve the life opportunities of our students and offered staff aprofessional development program demonstrating the benefits of life long learning and the realbenefits of sharing skills and expertise.Numbers & profile,the numbers of students in our 6 Special Schools vary from 100+ in the largest to approximately 60 inone other, all of the profiles show similarities in that their learning is significantly delayed, ourstudents are in need to much higher levels of support than their mainstream counterparts.Description of activities,the activities selected for training are directly related to improving student skills and competencies inthe areas of communication enabling students to get to know each other better eg social skill training. The activities and training sessionsare designed to be varied and responsive to changing times and enable students to link with others safely and to engage with society at a higher level. They are also designed to be suitable for special school pupils and crate an enthusiasm for this topic so it is seen as an enjoyable learning activitiesMethodology,All activities have already been discussed across the group and the methodologies selected have been tried and trusted in our schools and have a high success rate with ourstudents, At times it is multi sensory, at other times it may be interactive or direct teaching. Themethodology depends on the area of focus. It is also varied and engaging, the drama and dance is aninnovative and enjoyable means for students to increase their expressive skills, whilst the e-safety/ICTtraining is at the level staff and students will find interesting and enjoyable. All programs will betailored and modified to meet the needs of individual classes, pupils and staff.Likely results & impact,For a project to be worthwhile it must have a benefit and we need to gauge very carefully have effective our efforts have been. We will gauge the impact through evaluations and surveys of both staff and students and parents, we aim to raise theabilities of students to get to know each other in a number of areas, within their own classrooms, across their ownschool and between the partner schools, results will be posted on our website and agreements will beestablished in regard to the gathering of evaluations and surveys.Potential long term benefits,For our project to have been successful we need to up skill students in the process of ""Get to know me"", this will include people places and many aspects of our European society. the longer term benefits will be students who have improved key competencies and skills and lesser social isolation. We hope to share our project and its findings at alocal and regional level and also across wider educational gateways. Life long learning is animportant aspect for both student and staff and our project aims to have a longer term impact as werealize the benefits of sharing skills and expertise throughout our life journey."