According to recent researches it is very likely that human activities will impact future catastrophes, like earthquakes, storms, floods, landslides, also because population growth and urbanization make communities much more vulnerable to natural hazards. Moreover, hazard-related losses can cause migration and contribute to make worse the related problems .

Science plays a critical role in understanding and mitigating the effects of extreme events, but problems related to natural catastrophes go beyond scientific and technological approaches. Economic, cultural, political, sociological and psychological factors are of huge im-portance, as is the role of governments, international agencies and NGOs.: concepts of cooperation, international agreements and global community have emerged.
At the same time, the interest in disaster education has grown rapidly.  UNESCO has identified training for natural disaster preparedness as a core issue to be addressed under the “Decade of Education for Sustainable Deve­lopment” (DESD) and « EUROPA Major Hazards » recommends to set up a real « risk culture »
Several studies confirm that effective results can be obtained in this field by combining direct experience, observation, discovery and action, so disaster and risk education should be part of the national primary and secondary schools curricula and be included in several school subjects, but in the discussion among the participating schools, it became clear that our students do have a lack of ‘disaster and risk education’ in their curricula and an unawareness or inactive awareness of the effects of human activities on natural disasters.
Besides, environmental hazards, because of their transboundary development characteristics,. are issues for which transnational cooperation has a special relevance as well as it is important students know the different national legislation in a globalized world.
Transnational cooperation helps to increase the understanding of climate change and environmental risks as policy issues in a transnational context ; encourages local and regional actors to work together to develop joint strategies, tools and monitoring systems, provides opportunities for mutual learning and exchange of experience between countries which have specific and diverse territorial characteristics and are at different level of preparedness to address environmental problems.

 

OBJECTIVES
Our objective is to arm our students with the necessary skills to be future "Good citizens" focusing sharply on more complex social issues, such as the links between environmental quality, human equality, human rights and peace.
To achieve this goal we have planned a project which will:
   - Develop participant's lifelong learning and employment prospects through building a range of transferable skills such as entrepreneurship, communication skills,  self-organizing and independent and collaborative learning 
   - Encourage the participation of young people in democratic life in Europe, through  non- formal learning activities, which aim at enhancing the skills and competences of young people as well as their active citizenship.
   - Strengthen the academic achievement of all participants,
   - Offer  positive models within the context of safety and sustainability
   - Develop an innovative interdisciplinary didactic path, involving the review of curricula
   - Improve competences of teachers in inquiry based learning, in CLIL teaching and in student-centred pedagogical approaches
   - Raise awareness for the problem in the communities

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ACTIVITIES

These objectives can be achieved through a variety of means, e.g. traditional written comments by students, powerpoint presentations, graphic displays and exhibitions.  Model construction with associated exposition,  Audio Video recordings, web based outcomes or events. The choice of media will depend upon the age and ability of students and their audience. The following activities must always be viewed in relation to each other so that we have a coherent and holistic educational path

- Interactive and affective learning 

• researches in each Country on historical disasters

• personal experiences

• empathetic exercises

- Inquiry learning

• General researches on natural hazards and on geology, risk of 'natural '  disaster or disaster due to human activities in each country and their monitoring ( induced earthquakes and eruptions; events related to the climate change, like floods, landslides, melting glaciers ; eventually focus on how we should act, individually and together, to protect, preserve and propagate our  environment, harness our knowledge, share insights and technologies  to build a better tomorrow.)

• Developing innovative didactic paths about the topic involving more  subject matters

• Creating a platform with interdisciplinary and inquiry-based didactic activities, resources,  materials, guidelines.

• Studies   in depth the cutting edge technologies for the monitoring of geophysical phenomena on a large scale, for risk reduction, ( Earth observation  satellites, GPS...) and for a sustainable development ( new  technologies, alternative energy..)

- Experiential Learning

•  design  a list of characteristics that should be registered about the risk  places ( location, construction, human activities, access to basic  resources like water and energy...) 

• analysing  EU Legislation and legislation in each countries( (Emergency  Management , safety rules in different schools, countries.....) 

• movie/television reports; drama, making/performing art 

- Action Learning

• actions with the volunteers of the Civil Protection.

• developing material to raise awareness for the problem (booklets, SN, social group, use of Smartphone,,,)

• developing a game app,  designed to increase knowledge in the field of civil protection and emergency and testing warning App.

• developing risk maps and risk reduction plans

• developing ideas on environmental protection and sustainable development

 

Creating a network with National Institutes of Geophysics, Environmental Science, local authorities, local ‘green jobs’ companies and NGOs which will play the role of consultants and active partners. The goal is to have an effective partnership to face the challenges of Expo 2020 about sustainability and opportunity.

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EXPECTED RESULTS

   1) Software Outcomes
Record of textual, photographic and video outcomes will be available on the twin space, on a moodle platform and regional recipe website. In particular, we are planning to have :
- Essay on historical disasters in Europe
- Research and activities on natural hazards and induced disasters in each country
- Essay on the role of civil protection and NGOs in each country
- Essay on the  effects of hazards on migration
- Essay on the role of Science and Technology in Disaster Reduction and Sustainable Development
- Lesson plan prepared by students for peers and younger students
- File archive containing research notes, powerpoints and extensive textual descriptions of project activities as well as evidence of activities on youtube/vimeo and project results on Power point, Excel, Glogster, in Word. Lesson plans for teachers.
   2) Apps
We planned to implement an educational game app, designed to increase knowledge in the field of civil protection and emergency. Students will design the quiz and test their knowledge through constructive competition among different schools.

   3) Instructional Booklets/Brochures
Safety rules, Risk Reduction plan,  guide of natural disaster drills.

   4) Data Base
Each country will monitor the calamitous events in their region and every six months a google fusion map and a mathematical comparison of the events between each region will be published

   5) Teaching Activity
We plan to incorporate into the project IBSE and IBL activities, CLIL and interactive approaches, so we will produce a good practice guide that will allow teachers of all subject areas to use them as a means of including project content into the curriculum.

   6) Event
Drama and/or movie presentations, debate, actions with volunteers association and civil protection.

   7) Press/Radio/TV
We intend to use our experience of media relations to publicize the event extensively in the media, also through advertising movies and videoclip​

 

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