"<< Background >>The project will establish international cooperation to contribute to the raising awareness of two global issues - the fight against climate change and digital transformation.Technological developments are very rapid, so it is important to look at the links between their achievements and climate change. As society moves forward, the process of environmental degradation should be concidered, so the idea of our project is to help solve environmental problems by educating teachers and students, using the latest technologies.Scientists have warned that climate change is already a reality, not a future, and that most of the world's population has suffered from the effects of climate change. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our environment, our social environment and our economy. The effects of climate change are already visible and are expected to become even more threatening. Extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts and floods, are expected to become more frequent and severe. Knowledge is the basis of human attitudes and behavior. If a person knows and understands the processes, then he develops his own attitude and he is able to get involved in them. He develops a common understanding of the environment. Knowledge must be linked to global development perspectives. It is not enough for people to know and understand environmental problems. Everyone makes an indirect choice for their future through their actions towards the environment.Gaining knowledge and raising awareness of environmental sustainability and climate policy is important for the whole society.The target audience of our project is teachers who work with primary school students, who, in turn, are a generation with the opportunity to acquire the necessary competencies from childhood to learn to take responsibility for their actions in the environment and a healthy environment on a global scale.The growing amount of information and the rapid development of modern technologies determine the need to bring about changes in pedagogical work and teaching process at all levels of education. Therefore, the use of various digital learning tools in the pedagogical process is becoming more important in order to promote that students not only acquire the necessary knowledge, but also become active participants in the learning process and creators of new innovations and it can be promoted by preparing students for life in digital environment.Our project aims to create a high-quality digital learning tool on climate change that will provide knowledge, raise awareness of environmental sustainability and promote digital literacy for both primary and secondary education teachers and primary school students.<< Objectives >>The project aims to develop and promote a digital learning tool on climate change that will provide knowledge, raise awareness of environmental sustainability and promote digital literacy. The tool will support teachers when educating primary school students about the dangerous effects of climate change on Earth, developing a caring attitude towards nature, making them become aware of the consequences of their daily actions, encouraging them to live more environmentally friendly. The result of the project will provide teachers and students with access to high-quality and easy-to-use digital learning resource on environmental sustainability, as well as support educators in the use of information and communication technologies in face-to-face and distance learning.Implementing the project results, an international network will be established between the project partner organizations and educational institutions, which will use the digital learning tool on climate and climate change. The digital learning tool will emphasize the idea of unity and community to show that we are all united in a global family. This is the only way to work effectively to create a healthy environment for all living creatures on the planet.The digital learning tool is aimed at promoting a conscious attitude and enriching knowledge about the current state of the environment, in order to unite students, teachers, organizations from partner countries.Environmental sustainability is a complex and long-term process. Concrete results may be visible after several years, but the environmental education process must take place at all levels of education. The target audience of our project is primary school teachers and students who have a strong sense of the environment and the educational process is important to avoid losing it. In this way, children will continue the process of environmental awareness, will also influence their parents, and the circle of people interested in environmental issues will expand.<< Implementation >>During the project, trainings will be organized for a group of teachers-researchers to provide the necessary support for the development of project results. The project team will learn from good practice in the project countries, improve their knowledge of environmental sustainability issues and develop their skills in using IT tools. The training will take place in three sessions in Latvia, Croatia and Lithuania.During the project, three important project results will be developed:1) Curriculum ""Climate and its change"";2) Guidelines for teachers;3) Digital learning tool ""Climate and its change"".The materials will be posted on the open access platform in Latvian, Lithuanian, Croatian and English languages.Teaching materials will be piloted and a network of students and teachers, organizations will be established in the piloting process to share experiences on the use of digital learning tools, learning about climate and its change.Project results dissemination events will be organized - workshops for teachers in Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia to introduce the digital learning tool and its most successful use in both distance and face-to-face teaching process.<< Results >>The project will develop and promote three important results:1) Curriculum ""Climate and its change"";2) Guidelines for teachers;3) Digital learning tool ""Climate and its change"".The materials will be posted on the open access platform in Latvian, Lithuanian, Croatian and English.Dissemination events of the project results will be organized – workshops for teachers in Latvia, Lithuania, Croatia.Project organizations will have gained new experience in international cooperation, increased their capacity to create and implement innovative results, as well as contributed to solving topical issues - environmental sustainability and digital transformation."

Strategic partnership Youth Work HD, financed by the European Commission through Erasmus+ program, was implemented with an aim of giving an answer to the needs of youth workers that aren't covered at the moment in the countries involved in project (Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania), but also in most European countries. Four partners involved in this project have been working on standardization of youth work, CTC Rijeka (Croatia), EGInA Srl (Italy), LIKTA (Latvia) and LIA (Lithuania). They have gathered to develop and transfer learning methodology intended for youth workers into an online environment, in order to make it accessible to larger group of youth workers and transferable to other European countries. They have recognized general skills and knowledge that could help to set standards among different types of youth workers in Europe. The acquisition of needed skills and knowledge for youth workers was achieved through developed online courses that deal with topics defined through Research on youth work in Croatia, Italy, Latvia and Lithuania - reaching out to young people, usage of ICT tools in youth work, policy impact in the field of youth, cooperation with relevant stakeholders. The anticipated objectives were: (1) to administrate quality analysis of educational needs of youth workers, (2) to develop high-quality platform for non-formal education of youth workers, (3) to promote better support to youth workers on national level and all were met by the implementation of main activities organised around three Intellectual outputs: (1) a research on the educational needs of youth workers, (2) the development of curricula, educational materials and online courses, and (3) the development of an online platform YW HD that integrates those courses. The impact of the project results manifests in raising youth workers’ competences that resulted in increased quality of their work with youth, raising awareness on the needs of youth workers on local/regional/national/EU levels among public, stakeholders from the youth field, and decision makers relevant for inducing professionalization of youth work. Long-term benefits of YW HD project manifest in continuous utilization of the online platform, further education of youth workers, as well as further development and usage of the online platform by other organizations.

"Digital Social Innovation (DSI) is an emerging field, and little is known about innovators, organisations, and activities that support them and the use of digital tools for social change. There has been a recent big effort by the European Commission to sustain platforms and initiatives related to social innovation through the usage of open data, open-source programmes, hackathon initiatives, and more in general education programmes because it is critical to developing a culture of innovation, not only inside schools, colleges or universities but also within communities and educators, as local realities are drivers of change for real needs. One of the growing sectors for DSI is referred to as open data. Despite the fact that data-driven business intelligence has been implemented with success to address business innovation, open data have not revealed yet their full potential in solving social problems, even though there are numerous initiatives brought up at the local level. In particular, the E-learning youth platform for civic monitoring and open data learning and making [Public Makers] tackle a number of elements to build up the basis of DS: -Ways of thinking: Creativity and innovation/Critical thinking/problem solving/decision making/Learning to learn -Ways of working: Communication/Collaboration -Tools for working: Open data Information literacy/ ICT literacy -Living in the world: Citizenship—local and global/Life and career/Personal & social responsibilityPublic Makers aims at empowering young people in open data learning with a focus on DSI, supporting them in being more active at the social level, enabling them to be social changes through the usage of digital tools and open data, promoting open data hackathon as a tool for networking, knowledge sharing, and inspiring moments, as well as to develop investigations at the local level and make data as a service. Overall, the project wants to raise awareness on open data tools/possibilities and create resources for youth to access the opportunities created by open data policies (especially for active citizenship and youth). The project offers the possibilities to: - Promote open data with concrete tools to address open data work for youth workers and learn concrete techniques (QGIS) through an EDUCATIONAL OPEN DATA CAPACITY-BUILDING HANDBOOK FOR NGOs that contain the Public Makers framework and the proposed methodology to be reused by different organisations, even schools or institutions. - Incubate/support local projects in open-data investigation and aggregation through blended educational training, concretely supporting youth in building transversal digital competencies, encouraging them to understand how democracies work, how public money is invested, or how to get deeper into local issues (environment, immigration, cultural investments etc.) and how citizens can influence decision-making which leads to a COMPLETE E-TRAINING PROGRAMME FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN OPEN-DATA (activities and scenario) - access an E-LEARNING PLATFORM with interactive online tools to guide in a simplified way youth in learning all the basics regarding open data and how to use it.The core of the project is the e-learning platform which contains learning materials, webinars, existing resources and toolkits freely accessible. On this platform can be found a self-assessment questionnaire to self-assess the user's knowledge about open data. The ""Courses"" section is also gathering the training materials developed for trainers/youth organisations, educational materials targeting young people, guidelines and instructions as well as additional toolkits regarding democratic participation and the organisation of a hackathon with open data thematic. Following the 4 areas of our framework (Ways of thinking; Ways of working; Tools for work; Living in your community), we developed materials for young people that are in form of lessons, videos, articles, webinars, graphical content and contain a final quiz to get Open Badges after completion. The platform also offers to join a Public Makers Telegram group running as a Public Makers Community for users to ask questions and exchange around the thematic of open data. We are also providing videos/teasers for each unit to engage with youth and to enhance the learning/communication purposes of Public Makers.Public Makers aims to broaden target group ICT competencies creating sustainable and needs-focused learning patterns, enabling youth NGOs/informal youth/young citizens to act at the local level through open data interpretation and management. The project partners, combining their different expertise, want to ultimately empower different strata of society in becoming their own watchdogs of democracy."

<< Objectives >>Aim– to provide the critical knowledge to educators in the STEAM sector with the necessary knowledge and experience how to run STEAM activities using Design Sprint and Challenge Based Learning.O1: To explore how Design Sprint and CBL methodologies can be applied in non-formal STEAM education for students in formal education.O2: To develop a comprehensive training Handbook (PDP) O3: To implement dissemination activities and promote innovative teaching methodologies in STEAM education.<< Implementation >>Planned activities:A1 - Project managementA2 - Development of the training Handbook - professional development programme for teacher at formal educationA3 - Local workshops for teachers in Croatia and LithuaniaA4 - Local STEAM event (makeathon) for students A5 - Transnational meetings (Kick-off meeting in Lithuania, final meeting in Croatia)<< Results >>In General PROJECT PARTNERS will experience the process of innovating educational methodology in the STEAM field and gather relevant experience for their future excellence in the education. Educated and experienced educators and teachers will bring added value and new educational activities to the organisations.

<< Background >>We live in a world that just a few decades ago seemed like science fiction, with digital devices for anything one could think of and smart gadgets being an integral part of our life. In the face of this technological boom, we often ignore the impact these devices and the time we spend using them, have on our well-being as well as on the environment. Social isolation, psychological distress, depression and anxiety are just a few of the issues youth faces, thanks in no small part to spending huge amounts of time indoors, online, away from others, now more than ever due to the pandemic crisis. Young people especially, are the ones who get affected the most, since they are the main users of any emerging technology. Having the future ahead of them, also means that they will have to deal with the consequences of our environmental ignorance, long term. Sure, there are some well-known facts regarding health (like having the right posture while sitting in front of a PC) and environment (like recycling of digital devices and using energy saving settings) but they are outdated and far from enough to grant someone with high levels of competence proficiency. Both environmental risks, like for example the fact that the carbon footprint of many streaming services exceeds the CO2 emissions of most countries, while we binge-watch our -seemingly harmless- shows or listen to our favorite -though apparently not so “green”- songs, totally unaware that we contribute to the greenhouse gas emissions, and socioemotional, psychosocial and psychological health risks, as a result of excessive screen-time activities, are often easily neglected, even though they are as important, if not more, as recycling old digital devices or our physical well-being. All these make developing High School Teachers’ and students’ skills for a safe and responsible use of ICT essential.However, the switch to digital classrooms (online/distance classrooms) added considerable workload and challenges to teachers who struggle to deliver the curriculum online, thus oftentimes leaving the “Safety” aspects in the tail of their To Do list due to time constraints and lack of competence and knowledge on the subject. Even in the hybrid scheme (blended on-site and online learning) currently adopted by most countries, the conditions do not allow for proper pedagogical design and implementation of a complete training on “healthier and more responsible use of digital technology” in frames of national curricula.<< Objectives >>In this proposal we have formed a Partnership for Digital Education Readiness to build capacity in “healthier and more responsible use of digital technology”. The project aims to develop competences of proficiency levels up to 7 and promote “smart habits” for tech-smart High School Teachers and students. Training material will be designed in alignment with the Competences 4.3 “Protecting health and well-being” and 4.4 “Protecting the environment “, from Area 4 “Safety” of the EU Digital Competence Framework (DigComp). DigComp has been used as a tool by a number of organisations to develop learning materials, in most cases however not in its entirety, but focusing on a selected sub-set of competence areas and competences. To the best of our knowledge there is no training pack freely available to teachers on the entirety of competences listed under Area 4 “Safety” for all 8 levels of proficiency. In the report of JRC “DigComp into Action - Get inspired, make it happen” from 2018 some material for Area 4 is mentioned, with most focusing on competences “4.1 Protecting devices” and “4.2 Protecting personal data and privacy”. Usually, the two competences are coupled with competences of other areas. Materials that we could find in the literature manage to deliver training up to proficiency levels 3-4 “Intermediate” or less. For the competence “4.3 Protecting health and well-being” very limited training is available and almost no training materials are available for the competence “4.4 Protecting the environment”.<< Implementation >>BeWEEN project is built on a bottom-up approach, involving High School Teachers and students around a comprehensive process covering the components of research and analysis, piloting and evaluation and exploitation & policy making. In order to meet the project’s objectives, high schools and at least 15 high school teachers and 150 high school students per partner (ages 13-21, in order to cover all types of schools and students in the various national contexts) will be involved in the project’s activities. Other participants that will be also involved are trainers and representatives of other Educational organizations, representatives of local and national public authorities and policy makers.During the 24 months of the project’s implementation, partners, participants and potential end-users will embark into a challenging journey that will start with the research of the current needs for the development of competences and mindsets along with the collection of relevant good practices from all over Europe. The findings from this procedure will serve BeWEEN as the basis for the development of the relevant training curriculum for the digital competences of the teachers and its development and piloting. Practice-related activities will then be jointly promoted and supported by piloting actions that will enable participating high schools and educational institutions to exploit the full potential of the BeWEEN project’s results and outputs.<< Results >>BeWEEN will contribute for:1.Improving the level of key digital competences and skills of High School Teachers, with the aim to transfer this knowledge to students.2.Promoting and strengthening the European lifelong learning area, by contributing to the dissemination, multiplication and replication of the use of European transparency and recognition tools.3.Impact on EU policies concerning the safe and responsible use of digital technology.