 of Teacher Academy. We are glad to have you here. The main goal of this webinar as you already know is to facilitate entry and engagement in the course for those who are not familiar or less experienced with Teacher Academy online courses. We hope that after this webinar you will have a clear understanding about how things work in Teacher Academy, how you can make the most out of this course and how you can complete it successfully. To this end we have asked you to post any practical questions you may have and we will try to address them during this webinar. During this webinar we will also have some relevant to the topic discussions and we will present additional opportunities you can see in this period. Please note that this webinar is being recorded and I would like also to inform you that if you have any additional questions during this live event you can post them in the chat box that you see in the right corner. I see your roles already very active there and we will do our best to respond to them. So before starting let us introduce ourselves first. So my name is Efe Sardidu. I'm the instructional designer and course coordinator of this course and other courses of Teacher Academy of School Education Gateway so some of you may know me already and I work as pedagogical officer in European school nets supporting the pedagogical and professional development activities in future classroom lab and other European school net projects. But in this course I'm not alone. I'm very glad to have with me in this course Jose. Jose would you like to introduce yourself? Of course. Hi good afternoon. My name is Jose Villas. I'm a teacher from a high school in Coruña Spain. I teach biology and I'm part of the group of experts in the Ministry of Science in Spain of experts about citizen science. I train teachers and from primary and secondary school on hands on activities and I'm a communicator in a science TV program for kids. So as you can see I am a teacher. Excellent thank you Jose. I'm really happy to have you with me in this initiative. Here you can see also our Twitter handle so if you want to follow us and connect with us please feel free and I also make a note that if you face any technical questions throughout this course you can contact the teacher academy in the email you see there. But in this course it's only it's not only me and you Jose right? No. So in this course we have many participants joining from all around Europe. You see here I've seen already here in the chat we see people from Poland from Greece from Italy from Spain from Portugal from Germany and I'm really happy that we are so many different so many people from different countries here Albania North Macedonia I'm just reading your your chat now. So we are glad to have you all here. So before we start I would like to share some ideas and to to be all on the same page and start reflecting about the topic because our topic is how to address the global climate crisis in our classroom. So to this end I would like you all all of you to go to this to this website to go to menti.com and use the code that you see here. I can add also the website to the chat so it might be easier for you here. So go here use the code 31 38 56 and try to reply with one or two words in this question. So what is the first word or phrase that pops in your mind when you hear climate crisis? I will give you one minute to reply to this question. In this course we are choosing the world crisis instead of chains. So while we do that especially in this period the first climate change sounds rather passive and gentle when what scientists are talking about is a threat for humanity. It's a bit weird to discuss about climate crisis in this period while we are experiencing a global health crisis but the world crisis really shows the urgency of the situation so that's why it has been chosen. So we see already your responses here global warming urgent chains a big problem natural apocalypses yes well we we don't want to to make you feel scared though but we will discuss at the later stage while we are going through this presentation how how this term can be defined actually and how the period we are all experiencing is a bit more relevant to the climate crisis. So disaster urgent and I cannot see all the words high temperature natural health yeah you can continue posting your your answers there I see already 77 people have answered you can continue do that yeah okay pollution excellent take action I also see this response take action I keep that for later because this is what we are going to do also with this course we are teachers and we will try also to take action based on what we can do in our own classrooms or in our teaching in general because now we are not in the classrooms okay excellent so why to address the global climate crisis in your classroom. Cristiano Figueres executive secretary of the united nations framework convention on climate change back in 2011 said it is alarming to admit that if the community of nations is unable to fully stabilize climate change it will threaten where we can live where and how we grow food and where we can find water in other words it will threaten the basic foundation the very stability on which humanity has built its existence so teacher face a demanding task they need to understand what and how to teach about the complex forces driving climate change as well as its impacts on well-being and development prospects they need to show young people how how they and their communities can respond to the threat and play a part in reducing the scope and severity of climate change teachers also need to play their part in taking forward the whole school response to climate change that includes addressing climate and sustainability across the curriculum the audio is very bad okay I'm sorry do you hear me well was that do you hear me well yeah I can hear you perfect if there is my problem or your problem maybe if you can mute while I'm speaking and I will mute when you speak because maybe we have so that's actually what we will try to do in this course and this course will help you to understand and make sense of the scientific evidence behind the crisis and the associated ongoing debates more importantly it will explore how you can approach the topic through projects and other activities in your classroom so I have another question for you and in the meantime while you're applying to this question I will also try to solve the problem with the mic that I may have so how relevant is this learning how relevant is learning about the climate crisis in this period in a period where we are experiencing a health crisis let's see okay I hope you see the results to your answers also right so 97 percent of the participants think that it's quite relevant in this period as it is it is a serious issue to discuss and learn about especially in this period some people are a bit neutral so it is something to think about alongside other societal issues but I'm happy that you see that this topic is relevant in this period so I'm continuing back to the presentation what is happening in this period and why we are explicitly referring to that we can obviously we cannot ignore the current situation we are all experiencing right now unfortunately a threat is unfolding which gives us a direct comparison with the climate crisis what so what made the two crises so different in terms of the threat itself and in terms of our response let's see the coronavirus outbreak has triggered global alarm and the world jumped into action because it feels immediate it's here today and if we don't act on it today it's going to cost countless lives so we moved on restrictions on travel factories setting down guarantees and we have seen a huge surge on scientific research around the topic so we have seen big structural changes climate change also requires big structural structural changes which will take us here to put into place so probably the best we can do about this topic is to put our efforts in stopping us getting to that point of crisis in the first place instead of jumping into action when there is an extreme weather event for example which of course is necessary what about putting our efforts to stop one of the biggest driving forces climate change for the topic of climate change often public or political opinion view the necessary steps as not realistic but how realistic was it for you to stay at home for more than one month some weeks ago so why our responses to those two threats are so different we can open a big discussion here but i'm going to stick to our topic so the kind of fear that future generations will inherit depends on what we are doing today actually there is an additional connection between the two crises the environmental changes caused by the coronavirus lockdown were first visible from space in the first picture for instance nasa's earth observatory pollution satellites so significant decreases decreases in air pollution over china since the coronavirus outbreak began and the second picture highlights that the water in the canals of venez now looks clearer because there is less traffic on the canals while we are staying at home nature seems to be increasingly able to breathe more easily that's a very concrete evidence that shows that climate change is caused by human activities that's why we all have a duty to act to stop the climate getting worse the actions we take now will determine what the world will live in will look like in 10 20 or 50 years time so education is critical in this regard actually the current situation enables the change of perspective young people now have because of the covid 19 crisis on what the crisis really means it is not a far away thing that happens to other people it can be terrifying and require drastic measures it also pre prioritizes the scientific perspective through which we should approach things like that both covid 19 crisis and climate crisis are based on scientific facts however we have seen many conspiracy theories and fake experts regarding both topics that's an area that we should focus more in our teaching we should support our students to be critical thinkers and build an immunity to fake news so we first need to understand and counter misinformation about climate change and we can do that with many creative and inspiring ways i'm sure that during this course we will meet many of the of them coming out of you and your amazing practices cranky uncle for example is the creation of the scientist and cartoonist John Cook who uses cartoons humor and critical thinking to expose the misleading techniques of science denial and build public resilience against misinformation to explain why and how some people reject scientific evidence co-creating the character cranky uncle the family member we all have who thinks he knows better than the world scientists you can have a look in the link here and find out more about this character and how it can inspire you for more another interesting tool is this app named spot the fake which has been developed as an outcome of the project digital resistance found by the european union spot the fake is an app for mobile phones designed to teach students how to recognize fake news and how to critically assess and access information found online you can download it in your device or try it online on the last link you will find relevant free educational resources and worksheets developed by web wise for teachers that you might find useful please note that you will receive presentation the presentation so it will be uploaded in our platform so you will be able to visit the links as well so let's go back to practicalities Jose would you like to explain us the course structure and tell us how we can succeed in this course yeah can you hear me now yes okay perfect uh first of all the course structure we start as you know on 27th of april and we finish on in the 3rd of june so we have different life events big life events that like like this one and we have the first one on the 3rd 13th of may at the at 6 o'clock in the afternoon and it's a twitter chat a twitter chat as you know twitter is a very popular social media platform to discuss these kind of topics and the topic of climate crisis is very known in this in this platform so we have a twitter chat and we can address the global crisis and the sustainability in our classrooms and after that we have even to hear your views about the most important part of this chat is to know other people that is involved in this in this kind of topic and to connect with them and to share our resources in this case the next life event is in 28th of may at five in the afternoon and so teacher meeting is a organized teacher meeting but is in an informal meeting is to know another people who is working in this in this our adventure in our course and is to know the good practice of these of these people and to to to learn from our peers I think that one of the most important parts of these courses to learn about what is the what is the activities that other peers are are doing in in in this topic like this the climate crisis and the last one is a school education gateway webinar that we are going to to announce soon an expert and a teacher that is going to be involved in this one so as you can see the course of structure has four modules each model open every Monday as you can see then the last Monday is 28th of May and you have for each Monday for each module you have seven days after that seven days you have ten days of race period to finish the the taxes you if you want so the first one is the module to understand the global climate crisis the second module is to how we can teach about the global the climate crisis and how we are involved in the sustainability of the climate crisis in in our classes but the last one for me is one of the most important one is the the module for is the how to implement this this climate crisis in our teaching so because it's the most important one and the most tricky one you can see which is the way that we can be we can do this for model first of all we are going we're going to submit our job our work and this job is going this project is going to be assessed for three years three of our colleagues in our in this course but we are going to review the the the activity of the projects of other three peers so this is a a big way to know how the other people is working on on this topic and how they implement in the classes or in the teaching in the teaching experience in this in this case so the most important question sometimes for the courses is how to certificate and these are the four big tips for for this one the first one is visit all sections of the models of course the second one is be an active participant and engage in discussions in my case I I would like to say be very active of course in and participating and engaging discussions and of course develop and submit your classroom projects and remember the deadline 3rd of June but if you do as soon as possible in the first seven days is perfect because we are going to do the next activities that is to review the the activity of the other three peers so the deadline is 3rd of June but it's the last one the last one day remember that when you finish the course you don't need you can continue sharing your your experiences but you can see the activities of the of the course during the Sundays one of the things that you are going to do one of the activities that we recommend strongly recommend is to to do to make a learning diary if you want to know how is your evolution if you want to know which is you are you doing during this this course the best thing that you can do is to do a learning diary that learning diary and it's very useful at the end of the in the in the fourth module because you can see all the things that you do during the during the these weeks so it's very easy it's a resume or you can summarize all your activities during four weeks in this learning diary if you want to know how to do this learning diary the best way is to follow this youtube video how participating the discussions one of them is to follow the pamphlet of course and the forum of the of the of the course the pamphlet is very open is is a very good tool to to know and to practice with them and the other the other one is the social media the facebook group and and twitter you can you can see and you can follow the course even in different in different tools or in different devices and and you can be in contact with the other with other peers and colleagues so the best thing that you can do now is to invite peers and and friends to join because it's very very grateful to to do this kind of activities in this kind of courses with other people than you know so they it is open to to continue and i recommend you that just take with other people indeed so please invite your colleagues invite your friends to join it's still very early on this course we started on monday so certain news and invite your friends because learning together is better just to reply quickly to some questions that i read in the chat so yeah the mandatory activity of this course since in the module four all the other activities of course we highly recommend you to take part in the other activities as well because you can exchange and inspire your colleagues but the only mandatory activity is in the fourth modules social media are not necessary but of course we have the facebook group and we have a twitter so it's also good to to be there so you keep an eye on what's going on there and regarding the live events you can find more information on the live event section in the platform so before we leave and before i give you some time to to ask any other questions you may have i'm keeping a surprise for you so i didn't present math at the beginning now it's the right the right time to do so because as part of this course we also suggest you another MOOC another MOOC that could work as a complementary resource to your learning and to actually support your efforts to to improve your knowledge and practices in this topic so i would like to introduce you Matt Larsen Doh Mattis Education Manager at WWF in United Kingdom he developed the educational program that accompanied the our planet Netflix series which includes the popular natural ID app SIG and it's a combining resource pack the our planet lab local action and biodiversity to it Mattis chair of social social educational charity HVP Nepal United Kingdom Matt could you please turn on your camera and your microphone so we can welcome you in this hello the sound works i can see the little thing coming up excellent so i think it is working it's working perfect so thank you so much for giving me this this small platform i'm absolutely delighted that this MOOC that you've developed is coming out so close to the launch of ours they really are very complimentary and we'll be doing the same thing to people who come through our course will be signposting this fantastic course on educating the climate crisis um as you'll see it really does fit um perfectly together um so uh i am the education manager at WWF UK however um as as you heard previously i worked on the global education program associated with the our planet series um that was a Netflix series that some of you may have seen um if you haven't because you don't have Netflix it is now available uh for free on YouTube and it's a fantastic resource for the classroom um or to direct your students to watch and also for your own interest um if you have seen the series you'll know that its focus uh was not on one particular issue but on how the planet works as a living system um so it's it shows how the different biomes of the planet all have a role to play uh to create the conditions for life and then how human activity in each of those biomes and the way that we live generally um is actually preventing the planet from uh supporting life from supporting us in the future so climate change is therefore one of the issues that the series deals with and it's an incredibly important issue and it's obviously the one uh which most people are aware of these days when it comes to environmental crisis um and so it's a fantastic place to start and it's also a fantastic opportunity to engage students in thinking about issues that go beyond climate change and so the course that we've developed is called education for a sustainable planet and it's built around some of the content that was developed for the our planet series so some beautiful video footage um that was shot for the series and also for the website ourplanet.com and it also tries to make a similar point that there is a living system our planet that we need to support um and enable to continue to function if we want to survive for the years ahead so that means that it takes one step back from focusing on a specific issue like climate change and looks at the very broadest issue and the very broadest issue is that we are not living within our means we are not living sustainably and and uh at WWF we believe that this is the principle that we really need to underpin um everything that students do around uh geography and science um and any environmental issue that they discuss or study at school um because it's not just about understanding the causes of one particular issue it should be about the principles that can prevent us from causing issues in the first place and breaking the living system that supports us on our planet and so what sustainability and an understanding of sustainability means in practice is that we mustn't just think about the way we need to change um the way we live we need to actually change the way we think because we need to be able to look at everything that we do now but also anything that we might do in the future that we currently don't do um and we need to think about whether or not it is sustainable whether or not it's going to cause problems whether it's contributing to climate change or whether it's causing another problem um and think about whether or not it's actually a sensible course of action and if students can be led to understand how to think according to the principles of sustainability um then that means they will be equipped whatever they want to do later in life to do it in a way that contributes to a sustainable planet to a sustainable future for our planet. So I've already mentioned our planet because I thought this slide would have gone but the series itself as I mentioned takes you on a journey through the different biomes of our planet and talks about how damaging one biome leads to problems across other parts of the planet and so with climate change there's a really important side of it which is that it is contributing to problems in the natural world as well as changes to human life and but also are damaged to the natural world that has nothing to do with climate change um so our habitat destruction and the impact of land use for farming and so on that in itself is stopping the planet from being able to stabilize the climate um so it's not just about the things we're doing that are directly causing climate change it's about biodiversity loss contributing to climate change and making the planet less able to deal with it um so we want to encourage students to recognize the links between issues and so one of the key ones being the link between climate change and biodiversity loss um so we know that students are aware of climate change we know that they are striking on Fridays um because this is something which is scaring them something which is worrying them something which threatens their future and we don't just want them to be angry we don't just want them to see activism as the only way to bring positive change because it shouldn't just be about stopping what we're doing that's damaging the planet it should be about working positively towards a better form of life on our planet and that's what this MOOC that we've developed is all about it's about thinking about the whole system and underpinning all decisions with the principles of sustainable thinking and system thinking so seeing the connections and just like with your with the the climate change education course um we promote a whole school approach so it really does complement well anything that you learn um from one course uh will relate to uh what you want to apply from the other course and so we talk about uh how schools are not just ways for students to gain skills and knowledge um they are uh places within a community that have an impact themselves they have grounds so they are themselves sites which can have biodiversity impact good or bad um they are opportunities to connect with the wider community the families of students the families of staff the suppliers that bring food and other supplies into the school all of these um are ways to influence uh wider society so a school um has a huge potential impact huge potential positive impact so in our course um we try to encourage all educators and principals to think about not only whether or not they are teaching positive values and teaching uh the the facts and the science behind the issues that are planet spaces but also whether they are demonstrating the principles of sustainability and good practice environmentally by the way the school is actually uh working itself and um by the way that the school is run and managed and schools um are not just places um which can do positive uh could do things well or can do things badly and can set a good example or not and they're also convening places um so schools and colleges are uh incredibly important hubs of the community and they can drive individual action by students but also they can bring together individual actions not just um by students but also by the wider community because of the place that they they hold in a community and they can drive community action and of course that's where it starts to scale up and have more social impact and it can lead to influence on business and even governments and it's those uh big changes we believe um can drive the huge changes that are needed at the planetary level and as a wider point this is something which the MOOC also deals with is how um everything uh that we teach our students about sustainability and about the environment should be connected to how change happens there should be political literacy alongside environmental literacy so this understanding of um how we can bring change is a really good way of countering the helplessness and the fear um that the scale of crisis can cause in young people so um the MOOC um in its essential form is a course in taking a whole school approach to education for sustainable development it has five modules um bookended by an introduction and some uh resource and signposts which will include this climate change education course um and uh it will share some of the videos that are going you're going to experience if you if you take this climate change education course because there is such profitability you might find that some modules you can really power through but each module should take about an hour to complete and you can do them in a different order if there's a particular area of interest um and when you complete all the modules uh you'll have um you'll be able to claim your course uh completion certificate but there'll also be a badge for each module because they are important concepts in their own right um so as you can see it covers the importance of education for sustainable development how uh this idea of sustainable thinking should permeate everything that we do and the way that we think module two is all about systems thinking connecting issues to issues and connecting uh impact to causes um module three is about uh learning in an active and participatory way so that these things come alive in the classroom and also go beyond the classroom uh four is all about uh schools themselves um being exemplars of sustainability and demonstrating uh sustainable practice so that people involved in the school community live it as well as learning it and module five is about um what you can do to empower young people uh who are introduced to these concepts and to these skills um to actually bring about positive social change themselves and i just wanted to mention a couple of really complementary resources um that are signposted from our course anyway um but this uh our planet's future summit toolkit is available from wwfuk's website but also rplanet.com and it's a really good way of doing what i just described bringing together uh different issues and different biomes um so that you can explore the connections between them and but also um bringing political literacy uh into the picture with environmental literacy and it's a role played uh international summit so uh students take on different roles either world leaders or representatives of different biomes so they're there as environmental experts giving evidence and and there's a big discussion lots of presentations so each student uh research is something and presents on that but also here's all of the other issues and then there's a big round table debate the world leaders get the final say um but they have to think about what they've learned and how they can make that into a plan for the future of our planet so it's trying to make sure that no issue is seen in isolation that everything is seen as connected and then the other thing i wanted to mention which i think epi already mentioned was um our citizen science stream is all about um looking at uh real world um landscapes real world biodiversity um so that students can gain uh some hands-on experience of uh these subjects so we have this fantastic actual speak which is all about being able to identify the wildlife around you um and that's our way of making sure that in learning about uh these issues in learning about the the big planet wide uh crisis um students have something practical that they can go out and do they can use this app to explore their local wildlife see changes in the landscape uh changes in the ecosystem over time and but also they can be citizen scientists they can take wildlife observations and upload them to help scientists monitor biodiversity so it's a real practical them experience um that also means that they have a practical way of um relating what they learn about in the classroom to uh the the landscape around them so i just wanted to leave you with the five principles that underpin our course um there'll all be things that you dive into in more detail if you can take the time to do it so the first is that as educators we can teach the connections we can make sure that students do not um just learn the science of a particular cause and effect and that they actually understand um that everything that we do that has an impact on the world um is connected to everything else and one uh one change um for the planet uh leads to many other changes secondly we can foster sustainable values we don't just have to teach the science behind why they're important we can help uh students and staff of course put them into practice thirdly we can nurture a connection to nature so that uh students become more able to see changes in their own environment and more sensitive to the impact of their own actions outdoor classroom um and forest school and all of these other um methodologies that are available to us um that um help us to get students to spend some time um exploring and understanding better the natural world fourth we can support and empower students we don't just have to be uh leading them we can uh stand behind them and boost them if there's something that they want to do um so giving them a role um in defining what changes might be made within the school and also helping them um to make the connections that they need take action themselves so the ways we can really um lead to these principles and this knowledge becoming something real to students something they can use and therefore something that they believe in and that drives them forward and lastly we can lead the way we can lead by example both in our individual lives but also um in the practice of the school so I will just pop into the chat a link to the page we've got on our website the MOOC is going to be going live within the next two weeks it was meant to be live already but with COVID-19 things have slipped a little bit and I'm sure we're not the only um people to feel the impact on that um but if you go to this website um you'll be able to sign up to receive an update when it goes live and I really hope that you'll find it a very useful compliment to the climate change education course um it's also free um and as I said it is um it does come with participation so thank you very much excellent Matt thank you very much for presenting this course I we highly recommend you participants to join so please make your agenda your weekly agenda to save some time both for the climate change MOOC and the MOOC that Matt just presented to you because there are two great opportunities now in this period which are both free and they're very well prepared for you to equip you with the right knowledge and skills and attitude that you need in order to include these elements in in your teaching so um uh I think we have answered answered most of your questions you had so far during the presentation if you have any other question please post it here now it's the last opportunity um the recording as we said will be available in our platform we we have seen also some more content related questions but we are not going to reveal everything from now at this very moment so stay tuned and we hope that until the end of the courses you will have all your questions answered so since you don't have any other questions I'm gonna close this webinar I'm gonna thank my two great gentlemen for being here and presenting their practices thank you Jose thank you Matt um and thank you all of you 250 people that you saved this time slot for to spend it with us in this webinar I hope you are enjoying the course so far I hope you find the first module of the course useful stay tuned interact with your colleagues take as much as you can inspire each other and enjoy this learning journey have a nice evening everybody and take care