<< Objectives >>- Enhance primary school teachers' capacity in STEAM by introducing, training and providing practical experience to them in the “Birds flying High” educational program. - Strengthen primary school teachers' knowledge and competences in new non-formal education methods which are connected to sciences, arts and environment.- Provide the target group with simple, accessible ready-to-use educational materials and methods<< Implementation >>- 1 transnational training activity for primary school teachers in the already developed “Birds Flying High” educational program that will also provide the appropriate scientific knowledge about birds.- 2 program implementation of the non-formal educational activities that are included in the already developed educational program- 2 project exhibitions of the project results - 2 transnational and at least 6 online project meetings<< Results >>- Implementation of 1 training activity for teachers.- Implement the ‘Birds Flying High’ educational program in Cyprus & Greece.- 10 primary school teachers trained via the transnational training activity.- 2 national multiplier events/exhibitions for the direct and indirect target group reaching at least 140 people.- More than 500 people and stakeholders will participate in project activities.- ‘Birds Flying High’ materials reaching more than 1500 individuals and stakeholders.

Fishing has a strong social presence in the Mediterranean, with a largely fleet of predominantly artisanal character. The activity has remained in equilibrium with the marine environment for centuries, but soaring effort and technological advances in recent decades, plus multiple other human impacts on the marine environment, has led to a severe social, economic and environmental crisis. Finding solutions goes through a paradigm shift in which the environment ceases to be seen as a side issue and is understood as part of the solution, seeking a recovery of fish stocks and the marine ecosystem as a whole (principle of ecosystem based management). New European policies are increasingly aware of this need, and altogether seek for an integrated approach to environmental sustainability. These include the 2014 Community Fisheries Policy, The Framework Directive to the Marine Strategy, Birds and Habitats Directives, and the future directive on marine spatial planning.All these policies promoting the sustainable use of the marine environment have not to date been incorporated into the training programs of fishermen, and there is a lack of training tools aimed at professionals for their implementation in the sector. This project aims to facilitate the adaptation of fishermen to these new policies, and ultimately overcome the current crisis, by developing training materials focused on sustainability. To address this issue from a Mediterranean perspective, the consortium includes three NGOs representing BirdLife International in Greece (HOS), France (LP) and Spain (SEO/BirdLife), all with experience in dealing with fishermen and fisheries, and two of them (SEO/BirdLife and HOS) with previous experience in training projects (ecological farming and bird tourism). The fourth member of the consortium is the Fisheries Nautical Training School of Catalunya (ECNPC), which is the official body in charge of fishermen training (both regular formation and modules for professionals).The project aims to develop a series of training products: training course on sustainable fisheries in the Mediterranean (on-line, but contents to be also incorporated into presential training courses), and other training materials to support the fishing sector. Besides contemplating a set of actions for the dissemination of intellectual products, and training activities to form the basis of a training sector reform in France, Spain and Greece, and that may be transferable to other countries.The consortium created to develop the project has a strong precedent relationship, and share an interest in the development of sustainable fisheries, ensuring future continuity of the results. The impact associated with this project through the advocacy capacity of the partners, will be high across sectors and geographically, both short and long term.

"In Europe, agriculture and the agri-food industry account for 6% of EU GDP, 15 million companies and 46 million jobs. More than 77% of the territory of the EU is considered a rural area: 47% of agricultural land and 30% of forest land. In them resides approximately half of the population, who is dedicated to agriculture and other activities. On the other hand, the Biodiversity loss is one of the main environmental problems in the planet.The current health (Covid19) and environmental crises highlight the urgency of adopting measures to curb the loss of Biodiversity, mitigate climate change and promote food security. At the same time, improving the training of professional adults in the primary sector to ensure their full development in the current situation and possible future situations, promoting preventive work in the socio-educational action of adults to improve their well-being in the rural world.The EU, within the International Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted an ambitious strategy with 6 objectives and 20 actions to stop the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the EU by 2020. The mid-term review of the strategy evaluates progress in many areas, but highlights the failure in two: Objective 3: ""Increase the contribution of agriculture to the maintenance and improvement of biodiversity"" - there is no significant progress towards the goal; and for objective 4: ""Ensure the sustainable use of fishery resources and achieve good environmental status"" - there is progress but at an insufficient level.NAT-Helpers is a project of strategic associations for adult education focused on the Mediterranean area (including Greece, France, Italy, Malta and Spain). It is an innovative project that focuses its work on non-formal training of farmers and fishermen to contribute to achieving objectives 3 and 4 of the European Strategy for Biodiversity 2020, and improve training to achive objectives of european Agriculture and Fishery policies.NAT-Helpers has an innovative approach, whose main objective is to train the primary sector towards sustainable practices that allow them to achieve quality products and high marketvalue. That is to show how biodiversity and ecosystem services helps in primary production (agricultura, livestock and fisheries), turning the message of what to do to preservebiodiversity (regardless of its benefits).Our combination of partners ensure our approach is sustainable and realistic for the current traininig adult non formal educational systems.NAt-Helpers will be sharing resources through the partners existing networks. Including, localadministrations and sector trainers entities., and also the BirdLife International network whichconsists of 120 partners globally with 27/28 European partners.NAT-Helpers aims to engage the following audiences throughout and after the projects end:1. End-users of the project activities and deliverables (Primary sector Stakeholders) and teachers.2. Experts or practitioners in environmental education.3. Organisations’ networks.4. Farmers and fishermen.4. General public.The results expected on the individual participants and target groups due to the innovative outputs of the project are as follows: Firstly the impact on the participating organizations which will happen throughout the duration of the project. Participating organisations will enhance their knowledge, competences and skills regarding management and implementation of European projects and in the field of teaching. Secondly the project activities should have the following results on professionals and trainers attendees: - Strengthening professional development, profile and opportunities for participating attendees; - Increased motivation and rewarding educational experiences with their students."

The project, Improving professionals training in Ornithological tourism, in islands of Southern Europe (BIRDTOURISE) proposes the development of training materials, based on previous training products that enhance the capabilities of adults (tourism professionals) in Archipelagos and Islands of Southern Europe (Mediterranean and Macaronesian) to provide guidance for their products to a nature tourism and ornithological responsible, respectful and sustainable, such as mark European policies and the recommendations of the WTO. Besides its products help to improve the training of young and disadvantaged people who are evaluating tourism as one of their professional careers.Currently the EU tourism industry generates more than 5% of EU GDP, with about 1.8 million enterprises employing around 5.2% of the total workforce (approximately 9.7 million jobs working). But for Southern Europe and especially in islands, tourism plays a fundamental role in the economy, one of the local economic engines. To make this activity to continue generating wealth and contributing to human, economic and social development in disadvantaged environments is critical to ensure its sustainability both resources (culture, natural heritage and biodiversity) and time. And the main tool to ensure the respectful and sustainable approach is to improve training and the training of professionals. It is for all these aspects, that the present project arises with the main objectives: Improve training of professional adult bird tourism in islands of southern Europe (islands in the Mediterranean and Macaronesian). Enhance training throughout life, accessible to all professionals through the use of ICT. Provide training to youth and other disadvantaged groups, to broaden their job prospects without leaving their territories.The main products of the project to achieve the objectives are: To develop an online training module to improve training in the ornithological tourism, based on previous training tools (mediteraves and iberaves) already tested and highly valued, oriented tourism professionals who work on islands. Develop training, additional, specific to each archipelago that improve the quality of training products. And presenting the training materials created for the sector and facilitate access for disadvantaged groups to improve their qualifications.Thus the project will contribute to improving basic skills for specific groups of adults evenly in several European countries, which represents the added value of cooperation for training at regional level. To date, the training actions tourism environment, do not address these specific approaches, thus the orientation of the project, based on specific materials and using other innovative pedagogical approaches will help improve the skills of adult educators in the use of ICT and enable work with diverse groups of students.

Covid-19 has sparked changes in how we deliver training and teaching around the world, leading to new opportunities for distance learning and enabling more teachers to enhance their professional development. It has highlighted the crucial role of healthy natural environments for our planet and emotional wellbeing and mental health for ourselves. Research shows that school grounds can be a haven from stress and are places that help build resilience in childhood and adolescence, encouraging pupils to re-engage with school.The need for online training for teachers on outdoor learning is clear - LtL webinars and online workshops were viewed more than 20,000 times over the summer of 2020. A review of Erasmus + KA2 projects shows a gap in programmes that link digital learning to hands-on nature experiences as part of everyday learning - key to our proposal. We are seeing pupils lose their skills to interact effectively with their peers and teachers, forgetting key skills of being in school. An example of outdoor learning impact during the pandemic comes from Learning through Landscapes’ (LtL) My School, My Planet (MSMP) project, where pupils returning to school spend time outside undertaking nature-based activity. ‘This has been a fantastic experience for our children so far. They have enjoyed and fully participated in every activity. The children are very focused and engaged when working outside and their team work and confidence has already grown. One of our children in particular, who struggles to form positive relationships due to social and emotional needs, has benefited enormously by being actively engaged throughout the whole day and bonding with his classmates. We have noted a marked improvement with his social skills and confidence, when working on this project.’ (teacher, October 2020)Our UK partner schools, is part of the MSMP project and is keen to develop its outdoor learning offer having seen the impact it can have.Natural Nations Goes Digital (NNGD) builds on the current Erasmus+ National Nations (Nat Nat) programme to make the most of existing partnership and outputs, ensuring value for whilst are introducing new partners with fresh eyes to help develop this new programme.Nat Nat provides simple online tools for schools to share the benefits of wildlife in school grounds, with a particular focus on birds and pollinating insects. The programme aims to change both the culture and physical grounds of schools, but currently lacks an interactive platform to use the resources without the 1-2-1 support of environmental educators. NNGD project objectives:1.To build on learning and resources developed over the Nat Nat project to create innovative and interactive online training packages that include outdoor learning.2.To create learning materials that engage teachers and pupils where they cannot receive in-person training from external providers.3.To develop a package that combines the best of online training and outdoor activities.We will achieve this by:1.Working with Nat Nat and new partners, we will run the two projects in parallel so that learning feeds in and out of each project, resulting in higher quality outputs.2.Engaging at least one school from each nation to be partners or associated partners so that the new online packages can be developed, tried and tested.3.Using the knowledge and skills gained by partners through greater use of online systems throughout the pandemic. This includes project communication and meetings as well as output delivery.Project outputs:•Training for teachers to link each country’s curriculum to birds and pollinating insects.•Training for teachers to make their school grounds bird and pollinator-friendly.•Training for teachers to use the online teaching resources for use with pupils.•Teaching resources for pupils aged 10 – 14 on birds and pollinators and their needs. Methodology•Review Nat Nat resources and putting together training packages.•Work with teachers to understand the resources currently used and which online learning they find the most useful.•Review online platforms used by each organisation. •Build on resources developed through Nat Nat to incorporate them into new training or develop new approaches.•Approaches could include:oInteractive workshopsoIntegrate Nat Nat videos into wider training programmesoIntegrate outdoor learning into training for teachers via self-study outdoors oOutdoor lesson activities for pupils •Review activities and training with schools before launching them on the partners’ websites.With the new experience of the potential of online learning, we believe we need to create a learning experience that is much more creative and interactive and in Nat Nat and NNGD will enable us to reach and engage those who might otherwise look at other, inside-based learning on offer.