“Environmental Turn of Dance: Convergence of Therapeutic Practice, Art Creation with AI and Community Practice” (ETD) is a groundbreaking research endeavor poised at the nexus of dance studies, environmental philosophy, and AI technology. The project seeks to investigate how dance can effectively generate awareness of, and proactive responses to, the challenges posed by climate change. Specifically, the research will evaluate existing initiatives, performances, and collaborations that integrate dance and climate change and identify the ways in which dance can contribute to climate change education, advocacy, and the promotion of sustainable practices in Malta. With urgency stemming from contemporary ecological challenges, ETD aims to redefine the role of dance as a catalyst for ecological consciousness, addressing the why of our environmental crisis in a novel, embodied manner. The current moment demands immediate action in reshaping our relationship with the environment. ETD acknowledges the pressing need to infuse environmental awareness into artistic expression. This urgency aligns with global concerns for climate change and ecological well-being, propelling us to address environmental issues creatively, fostering a sustainable future. Methodologically, this project seeks to unravel the intricate interplay between dance and the natural environment, shedding light on unexplored dimensions. Moreover, ETD pioneers the integration of AI technology into dance research, emphasizing innovation and collaboration. This approach marries creative artistry with cutting-edge tools, enabling dynamic exploration of ecological themes. ETD exemplifies my profound interdisciplinary expertise. My recent international projects have skillfully developed intersectional knowledge, bridging dance studies, environmental philosophy, AI technology. Therefore, ETD will build TRIPLE-I dimension (International, Intersectoral and Interdisciplinarity) and integrate diverse expertise.

Science in the City is Malta's national science and arts festival. In 2021 it will be a hybrid event held on the 24th and 25th September. The physical festival will be held in Fort St Elmo, Valletta. Here research-inspired dance, music, theatre, art installations, street science, talks, experiments, science stage comedy, and more will transform the 500 year old fortification. Our digital festival will run concurrently with a 'Live Virtual Festival' broadcast on Facebook live, Zoom and the SitC website and consisting of shows ranging from environment-themed online escape rooms to animal-inspired concerts and puppet theatre, as well as our Explore the Arches area featuring exclusive prerecorded content and activities that are always available. This year we aim to attract 35,000 people (c. 7% of Malta?s population) through both online and real world attendees and make c.350,000 people aware of our goals). All this effort provides a memorable platform for citizens to engage with scientists, researchers, artists and performers. SitC was conceived to eliminate misconceptions about science and researchers, increase appreciation for European funding for research, and to increase the number of students opting for STEAM careers. This year, the theme is "Sowing Seeds" which ties in with the EU's efforts to raise awareness and involve its citizens in the European Green Deal policy. We want to embed the elements of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and the quintuple helix in Malta. The quintuple helix framework brings together the education system, economic system, natural environment, civil society, and the political system to address societal issues such as climate change. Sowing Seeds will enable citizens to take an active role in shaping their future. This focus on involving all stakeholders, will help citizens take responsibility for their future, and bring together the helix to address issues we face as a nation and as european citizens.

The European Researchers’ Night, Science in the City Consortium, Malta, will engage the publics in the framework of a Science and Arts festival. In 2022, the festival theme ‘Taking Root’ builds upon previous themes while focusing the festival on the European Green Deal and Horizon Europe's missions. Taking Root emphasises how important science and research are in everyday life, and in active, responsible citizenship, in a world which is undergoing monumental changes, especially to its environment, nutrition and health. COVID-19 has shown us just how true this is, while climate change is an unavoidable threat we need to adapt and build resilience towards. The festival will be held online and in the streets and buildings of Malta's capital city, Valletta, a UNESCO world heritage site making it the second hybrid science and arts festival. The main aims of ‘Science in the City’ (SitC) since 2012, have been to engage people emotionally and intellectually through science and the arts, showcase local and international excellent research projects, increase awareness of the importance of R&I, encourage interest in STEM and research carers, and instil a more favourable attitude towards research and its public funding. It has done so by introducing creativity, critique and analysis, as well as the trend of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) among researchers and citizens alike. For ten years it has offered a platform for all stakeholders to meet, discuss and engage with R&I. In 2022, the element of research action design will be at the centre of the activities. Here collaborative, creative planning and design of activities grounded in the vision and needs of the community will bring all stakeholders on board from the start. Every stage of SitC will be developed using a user-centered and participatory design process to make the festival as inclusive as possible no matter their background.

"The idea for this project is to promote the training about Greening in VET in line with policies of the EU and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as identified by the United Nations Development Programme for the year 2030.Since the project started, the project themes of Greening and the SDGs have been prioritized by the EU, UN and countries across the globe. The importance of teaching about Greening and the SDGs has become so much more relevant and important as the years passed making this project very highly relevant. The successful completion of the project provides a wealth of knowledge and reference material that will aid schools, institutions and policy makers with formal preparation and training to address Greening and the SDGs.VET plays a key part in this as it prepares learners in a variety of subjects that are all connected, somehow, to the environment. Besides, students are citizens of the world and will be the leaders and policy makers of the future, thus impacting our planet. The project was partially impacted by the Covid19 pandemic, but a 4 month extension of the project enabled the partners to complete the project successfully. In fact the objectives set out in the project application were achieved: 1. To raise awareness of the Greening issues across all VET disciplines and link them to the SDG priorities; This was achieved with the engagement of learners and teachers at various stages of the project and will continue after the project end in view of the website and smartphone app that will be maintained by the partners. The Intellectual Outputs (IO) 1 (which developed the study unit for learners) and 2 & 3 (which provided the teacher training and toolkit) helped significantly to meet this objective. The Teacher training activity C1 was also a very important contributor to this goal. 2. To disseminate knowledge and deliver relevant accredited training related to Greening;The activities mentioned in 1 above helped disseminate the knowledge and accredited training about Greening and the SDGs. Apart from this, various activities held at the partner institutions helped in this regard as well. Just to mention the ""Foster a Tree"" campaign run at MCAST in Malta amongst others as documented in the greening guidebook produced in IO6. 3. To include Greening across all VET curricula through the design, development and deployment of an accredited module that can be included in any VET course curriculum or else taken independently;This was completed under IO1. A VET accredited Level 4 training module was developed and shared with all partners. At the end of the project, the knowledge has been shared with UNESCO UNEVOC to disseminate across its global network of 220 Centres. 4. To up-skill and prepare VET teachers in the Greening and environmental issues;This objective was achieved as IO 2 & 3 were developed and a group of teachers (4 from each partner) were trained and certified to deliver the training as part of the Training activity C1. 5. To outreach, provide relevant information and involve all VET learners and the local communities in Greening.This objective was achieved in a number of ways. Some are the Greening activities embarked on the campus involving learners and staff, the development of an informative website and smartphone app to engage with local and global communities on the aspects of Greening and the SDGs, the design and development of the Greening Guidebook for schools developed under IO6. Therefore, the Target Groups of VET Learners, VET Teachers and the Communities were properly addressed and engaged as planned in the project application.The transnational dimension of this project needs to be emphasized. The partners in Spain, Malta, North Macedonia and Greece have contributed significantly through their knowledge and expertise to all the activities of the project. This reflects on the quality of the outputs. Also the project has a direct influence on employability, both in the short and long term, since the relevance of Greening in various jobs and careers has become very important today. Learners with relevant training in Greening are valued highly. At the project application stage we had stated ""Generally speaking, this project will result in the modernization of the VET approach in a number of countries with respect to Greening issues. The subsequent potential of disseminating the knowledge gained across the EU and its partner countries as well as to the global platform increase the significance of this project."" And this has been achieved and will continue to be achieved in the years to come with the material and knowledge developed and disseminated. The project partners had also stated that their intention is to build a legacy of this project and this is happening now as the output products of this project are being disseminated not only in the partner countries but also across the EU, UNESCO UNEVOC and effectively globally through the Internet."

"<< Background >>""VET modules transformation to hybrid digital learning type and programming subject gamification for EU learners"" is 24 month long project about student competitions in STEM and integrating the game technologies (gamification) to the existing programming subjects in VET. The main idea for this project was born after Microsoft’s research organisation began to experiment with tools that make it possible for kids to learn how to code in the context of gaming. Our school enthusiasts started experiments with this fantastic game and tried to include various subjects to do list and mix with exercises in a game in different subjects as well. The results were perfect. Step by step we have approved for our administrators and heads that the idea is working. Nowadays we are using this integration for programming subjects to Minecraft and experimenting with the exercises and group work in order to receive much more efficiently to STEM. Moreover, we started spreading the idea and now we are collaborating with EU partners willing to share the good practise/knowledge. The project is tend to be innovative because we will learn vocational subjects while playing (coding) but at the same time following the training program. Programming, computer networks, operating systems, computer graphics and other vocational subjects will be taught in the Minecraft Education Edition (main item for doing this project) environment. Partners: different sort of EU countries with different education systems. Kaunas information technology school, Lithuania - as the main coordinator (and the Baltic education system as well as all East EU part core of it), Riga State Technical School, Latvia - as the example of the Baltic education (they had projects with NORDPLUS and additionally did a project on the development of training materials. Also, they have a good base of networking tools and are able to share the test of how to build an online platform), DUCOR""Partenija Zografski"", The North Macedonia as the Yugoslavian part of the education system, which is different from us as well as MCAST, Malta – a partner example who can at once use west, central, south EU and Mediterranean part of EU. Although the Minecraft Education Edition is popular throughout the world as a teaching tool, it is barely applicable to vocational training. The programming itself not an easy task and not for all but still most perspective profession and knowledge. The partners believe that this methodology has many advantages for students: decrease in the abstraction level required by this subject, since students can check the results of procedures and code solutions in concrete and real situations, the resulting motivation of viewing the results of their logical constructs in a real context. It is important to mention, that with this project we will try to adapt gamification to ""old"" thinking programming lessons.<< Objectives >>What is more, all the partner countries have different education systems, so at first, the target group is programming language teachers (by priority Python, CodeBlock and Java) or IT teachers who are involved into local programming subjects, know the structure of their local programming basics module structure, and has access to it. There should be 3 teachers from each partner country, 12 in total. The second group is the coordinators and trainers. The teachers will be creating these intellectual outputs: 1. Unified ""Developmet basics"" distance learning ready programme for VET (O1). 2. Training Kit for Teachers (O2) – teaching resource for teachers, which is an auxiliary tool for creating new lessons, transformation from the old style learning to the digital/remote/online in the Minecraft Education Edition environment. It is clear that the main item for doing project would be the Minecraft Education Edition game and the final goal - to prepare the didactic matherial, for Teachers. So, these two intellectual outputs should be prepared during the project. The O2 final goal is to create the didactic material taking the structure of the unified distance learning ready programme, which would be done during the O1 by the teachers. That is why the responsible group should consist the same amount of participants and should use the same 3 teachers, who create the O1.<< Implementation >>The main item for implementing this project would be the Minecraft Education Edition game and the final goal is to unify each programming language subject programme and prepare the didactic matherial, especially, the learning KIT for Teacher, with recommendations, lessons examples, downloadable and printable stuff, tips and hints, etc., so the trained teacher with our KIT material could make the lessons for students by our unified programming basics programme and teach them in a new modern gamified way. These two mentioned main intellectual outputs we will prepare during the project.The draft agenda for the whole project is:The 1st transmeeting (1-2 working days + transfer);The 2nd transmeeting (1-2 working days + transfer);The Training week (5 working days + transfer);The 3rd transmeeting (1-2 working days + transfer);The 4th transmeeting (at once with Final meeting with 1+1 woking days + transfer in total);The Final conference (up to 4 days in total see 4th transmeeting).<< Results >>Results: 1. Unified ""Developmet basics"" distance learning ready programme for VET. 2. Training Kit for Teachers – teaching materials for teachers - the helper to prepare the teacher to transform from the old style teachning to XXI century digital learning and incude the tips for any kind of the lesson format, such as online or local, should also have the lessons list with all needed stuf (templates files, curricular template, etc.) for students that they do, since using their prepared student kit. It is a teaching resource for teachers, which is an auxiliary tool for creating new lessons in the Minecraft Education Edition environment and prepare the complete learning path of the programme section. This methodological material will also be prepared in the language of each partner country. This toolkit will be dedicated not only to experienced teachers but also to the new ones willing to integrate Minecraft's game environment into their lessons. 3. Teachers' certification is foreseen during short-term joint staff training event, so another project result will be - 12 certified teachers who will be able to formally conduct training in the Minecraft Education Edition environment. The training Kit will be freely available to anybody and would be ready for any kind of lessons (online/hybrid/local). The tasks created during the project will be placed on a website designed specifically for the project. This will allow continuous updating and upgrading of both student tasks and methods for teachers after the implementation of the project."