Climademy: The Erasmus+ Climate Change Teachers’ Academy

Climademy is the Erasmus+ Climate Change Teachers’ Academy, which aims to provide a comprehensive framework where educators can learn how to teach the next generation of European citizens about climate change drivers, impacts and mitigation and adaptation measures, using an efficient methodology. Climademy aims to create a network of initial training and professional development organizations that will offer formal and non-formal education and training opportunities for in-service and training teachers.  The network supports and provides the necessary infrastructure, digital tools and resources, and promotes the educators’ climate competences.

In Climademy four national hubs have been established to offer training activities for teachers, with specific foci driven by the regional particularities: the Greek hub in the Mediterranean, focusing on the chemistry of the atmosphere, the Finnish hub in the Arctic, focusing on atmospheric physics, the German hub in continental Europe, focusing on satellite observations and modelling tools for climate change projections, and the Italian hub on the transformation of all information to knowledge and awareness through the environmental education process. The CLAUDI digital platform is at the heart of Climademy and hosts all educational material, online courses, provides links to open data, and supports the community forum. Material is available in English and in the national language inside each national hub areas. CLAUDI is openly available after registration and can be assessed through the Climademy website (https://climademy.eu)  and directly through http://claudi.chemistry.uoc.gr.

The Climademy activities carried out in the hubs have been enriched with a «pedagogical identity» through the development of a model to convey the message that the teachers do not only have to teach new scientific content, but also use new pedagogical approaches. Additionally, a Climademy competence framework was developed, combining the GreenComp and the University of Helsinki’s Competence Framework for Climate Change.

The first teachers who participated in the training activities also served as co-developers of the content and the methodology. The following 100 teachers to participate in the Climademy training activities have been recruited from the 4 countries.