People have been fascinated by volcanoes ever since the dawn of mankind and treated them with utmost respect. The rapid development of converging technological areas, such as informatics, material science or space research multiplied our knowledge of earth processes and created some highly specialised fields within volcanology. At the same time a dramatic gap has formed between the professionals and the public. As a result, in today’s world, the work of volcanologists is nearly as mythical as the work of volcanoes in ancient times. The objective of this project is therefore to address this issue and bridge the gap between science and the general public of different ages. Participating scientists will not only talk about their field of research, but will also share their experience on how students can approach science and research institutions, providing perfect scenario to attract young people to science careers. During Volcanoes Night participants will be provided to access research facilities, and a complementary scheme of workshops, science cafés, excursions, presentations and challenge games will be arranged all to fuel the public’s curiosity, interest and understanding of research activities. As a backdrop to the Night volcanoes will be used not only to explain the work of volcanologists but also to explain what science is about and what scientists and researchers do during their daily work.

The European Union Outermost Regions (ORs) are geographically isolated from the European continent. The ORs are French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion Island and Saint-Martin (France), Azores and Madeira (Portugal), and the Canary Islands (Spain). FUTOR will enable young citizens to use digital technologies to envision and bring forward desired futures through systemic thinking and interaction with others using digital art as a means of self-expression and engagement. This work will be facilitated by middle and high school teachers, who will themselves become part of a Life Long Learning process becoming more and more familiar with digital technologies and the creative use of social media for disseminating the outcomes of students’ projects.FUTOR delivers a combination of digital and physical activities, designed to address the COVID-19 situation. The collection of “baseline” imagery, footage and description will take place in the physical word, giving the students the much needed physical activity that can be conducted in very small groups or even individually - as the pandemic situation allows. Focusing on the immediate surroundings, documenting the state of the natural environment (or other phenomena such as the state of an object of interest or the community/society at large) in the immediate neighbourhood does not necessitate long travels. This individual work is then followed by group interaction and discussion, but through digital means and social media interacting with a large group of co-workers and team members.The project will start with a mobilisation campaign, relying on the project partners’ well-established school networks to engage with schools and teachers. This mobilisation campaign will coincide with perparatory phase of the project (first twelve months) during which IT frameworks will be developed and the exercises will be conceptualised. The Futures Thinking concept will be converted into guidelines for teachers that are meant to develop critical problem solving skills, critical reflection and scientifically sound solutions within digital art. It goes against the myth of creativity and science being separate, instead it guides students to capitalize on reliable information, co-create a realistic vision and collaborate on implementation. Teacher participants recruited at this stage will later act as mentors in guiding learners, facilitation of online collaboration through wikis, dissemination on social media, selection of an in situ project for implementation and planning and execution of local team effort.Following the conceptualisation and recruitment phase, the second phase (Year 2) will foresee the deployment of several Pilots in Europe’s ORs (the aim is to recruit at least 10 schools). Each Pilots will be implemented in three Execution Phases (EPs):EP1: guiding students to identify a local environmental cause or concern they wish to address and develop their projects about. Partners shall closely coordinate during the process as Team Wikis will be set up.EP2: focuses on inter-school collaboration across the ORs at learner level. After completing an online short course on the risks of social media use students are encouraged to connect on social media using their personal or - if applicable - institutional accounts as well as directly on their allocated Team Wiki pages. Imagery and/or footage of their local natural environments to be restored and/or preserved are uploaded onto the Team Wikis in a ‘before/after fashion’. Edits are to be carried out in consultation with team members and supervising teachers reflecting individual creativity, group input and scientific soundness. Creativity shall be encouraged and valued while respecting the integrity of local ecosystems. Team Wiki pages - and thus EP2 - are complete once each participant has finalized their before/after imagery/footage and the teams have co-edited a text documenting their know-how of their particular projects on their Team Wikis. EP3: guides students to collaborate on a local scale using know-how gained through international inter-school collaboration in EP2. It involves reorganizing students into local Action Teams and identifying one or more local environmental causes or concern of manageable magnitude and level of difficulty that students are interested in pursuing. EP3, in preparation for sustainability of results and future upgrades, also includes the documenting of students’ actions through the creation of ARIS open source software documentaries.The immediate impact of the project will be two-fold:- FUTOR will empower secondary school teachers with new pedagogical methods, tools and instruments contributing to the important life-long learning ambitions of this stakeholder group.- FUTOR will empower students and young people with the power of systemic futures thinking expressed as digital art, contributing to the improvement of digital literacy of this stakeholder group.