A Summer School on Climate Change and education that enhances the approach and tools that Fondazione Golinelli, the Research Group in Physics Education of the University of Bologna is developing and experimenting within the European project Climademy, also with the collaboration of network of Italian teachers and co-designer schools.

The course, focused on data humanism and data storytelling, aims to provide a nurturing forum to rethink our ways of communicating and teaching, exploring the potential of STEAM approaches. It is designed to build awareness of the complexity of climate change and interpretation of data but also of the need to imagine possible resolutive scenarios by cultivating hope, in a path in which first the teachers and then the students are leaders and builders of their own knowledge.

Practical workshops and interactive sessions both provide a diverse range of concepts and methods to be integrated in the classroom and help participants to enrich their abilities to design and manage active learning activities for students.

One of the ideas underlying the training is that doing and experimenting are the basis of a fun and a long-life learning, fostering the meeting and a constructive dialogue between science and technology but also between the world of research and school.

Registration form here

Where: Opificio Golinelli, Via Paolo Nanni Costa 14 Bologna (Italy)
When: from June 26th to 28th and June 29th (optional)
Cost: 80€/day/person for training activities and coffee breaks (accommodation and meals not included) 
Target: lower and upper secondary school teachers with scientific, artistic, humanistic and technical backgrounds.
N°: min 12 - max 30 teachers

Program

The proposed workshops will valorise data as a cognitive tool of phenomenological reality (data science) but also of the unique and personal reality of each subject (data humanism), exploring opportunities for investigation and learning, through the use of data able to connecting the planetary dimension with the territorial and personal one. Open database will be used in order to download, aggregate and interpret data, to share through captivating maps in order to raise public awareness of climate change problems and produce concrete effects, in small as well as large communities.

Satellite images will be also explored, permitting to go deeper into urgent and contemporary issues, such as land consumption, deforestation, coastal erosion and loss of biodiversity.

The workshops are of 4 types/formats according to the Climademy pedagogical model, considering different rules of teachers:

• Explorer (mapping of previous knowledge and experiences);
• Student (exercises to experiment with technologies or applications);
• Analyst (discussion and meta-reflections on the activities carried out from an educational, professional and personal perspective);
• Designer (creation of educational activities for students).

26th June - Data story-telling and sustainability competencies

From 10 a.m to 1 p.m and from 2 p.m to 5 p.m

• Get to know workshop
• Inspirational Lectures
• Experimentation: practical workshops
• Reflection workshop

27th June - Data story-telling and data humanism

From 9 a.m to 1 p.m and from 2 p.m to 5 p.m

• Inspirational Lectures
• Experimentation: “explorer and student” practical workshops
• Reflection: “analyst” workshop
• Ideation Workshop: “designer” workshops

28th June - Storyline: future thinking and future scenarios

From 9 a.m to 1 p.m and from 2 p.m to 5 p.m

• Inspirational Lectures
• Experimentation: “explorer and student” practical workshops
• Reflection: “analyst” workshop
• Ideation Workshop: “designer” workshops
• Retrospective workshop to conclude

29th June (optional) - In search of data across the city

From 9 a.m to 3 p.m 

• Steam treasure hunt to get to know Bologna through data
• Outdoor activities and visits to local research facilities

Faculty

Olivia Levrini - She is a Full Professor in Physics Education and History of Physics at the Department of Physics and Astronomy “A. Righi” of the University of Bologna. Her current research work includes: interdisciplinary approaches in STEM education, didactic reconstruction of current and advanced physics topics (thermodynamics, relativity, quantum physics), cognition and conceptual change, identity and appropriation processes, instructional design on future-oriented STEM topics (climate change, artificial intelligence, quantum computing). In addition to Climademy, she has coordinated several European projects for her research group: www.iseeproject.eu, www.identitiesproject.eu, www.fedora-project.eu.

Francesco Martinelli - He holds a degree in natural sciences and specializes in scientific communication. He works in journalism, communication, and training on topics related to earth sciences and ecology. Since 2015, he has collaborated with the Golinelli Foundation on teacher training and communication activities, including Climademy. He writes for some important sector magazines (National Geographic, New York Times, Radar Magazine, of which he is a co-founder).

Giulia Tasquier - She is a Researcher (RTDb) at the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna, where she conducts research in Physics Education. In particular, she focuses on the design and implementation of innovative educational materials on modern physics, the correlation between knowledge and behavior in addressing climate change, models and modeling in physics teaching/learning, future-oriented STEM design, and open schooling.

Mariabeatrice Starace - She is a designer, maker, edu tech expert and Stem teacher. She has been collaborating with the School Area of ​​Fondazione Golinelli since 2017, both as a facilitator and process tutor for entrepreneurship education projects, and as a STEAM trainer for students and teachers. She works in various lower and upper secondary schools. including Scuola delle idee Marino Golinelli, promoting and training students' digital and transversal skills through a hands-on and project based approach. 

Stefania Zampetti - She is a medical biotechnologist with a PhD in biodiversity and evolution with an anthropological focus. Since 2017 she has been part of the School Area team in Fondazione Golinelli where she is now an expert educator for science and STEAM for students and teachers. Since 2022 she is also a science teacher at  “Scuola delle Idee Marino Golinelli” (a STEAM lower secondary school) where she also co-lead STEAM strengthening projects and the Gender and STEAM projects.  She is a Co-designer teacher of the Climademy.

Learning objects

By attending the Climademy Summer School, teachers will focus on environmental education; they will be immersed into a community of pairs exploring together new learning/teaching strategies and the potential of new approaches to teaching climate change to the next generation of European citizens.

The course gives the opportunity to create a network and community of practice to create innovative strategies and programs for preparatory and continuous professional development on climate change and its impacts. The use of a STEAM approach as an access point for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking, permits to develop learning units based on real-world applications, with the main goal to imagine and solve real-world problems through hands-on learning activities and creative design.

Through the provided course teachers will:

• Test and discuss some exemplary activities that can be replicated in different contexts and on different contents.
• Become familiar with STEAM approaches in order to adopt it in their daily practice also with reference to climate change issues.
• Take part in the active teaching and learning community of Climademy for continuous professional development on climate change. Share common values, ideas ​​and practices with other teachers and researchers. 
• Be introduced to the pedagogical and methodological tools with reference to Climademy competence framework to design educational experiences for students and facilitate the activities of other colleagues. 
• Learn how to use climate change data in order to connect the planetary dimension with the territorial and personal one.
• Enlarge knowledge and skills about how to teach climate change issues in their classroom.
• Reinforce the understanding and the scientific knowledge of some basic aspects of climate and climate change.

Fondazione Golinelli is a private philanthropic foundation accredited by the Italian Ministry of Education for teachers training and students education on STEAM. Its head office is Opificio Golinelli, a 14.000 sqm location with labs, facilities, art and science exhibition space for teachers, students, startupper, researchers, family and public. Fondazione Golinelli deals with education, training, research, technology transfer and venture capital. 
In particular Fondazione Golinelli supports schools in developing the STEAM curriculum and it takes part in many European projects on science and digital competences. In the 2022-2023 school year it delivered more than 100 training courses, in which more than 6000 teachers, school managers and future teachers have participated. Since 2022 Fondazione Golinelli leads and manages "Scuola delle idee" (School of ideas) the STEAM lower secondary school that is hosted in Opificio Golinelli.

Research Group in Physics Education is part of the department of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Bologna. It research activities and studies relates to the foundations of contemporary physics and their educational reconstruction;approaches for teaching advanced STEM topics (climate change, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies); the role of the teaching/learning of physics for the development of future-scaffolding skills; the role of history and epistemology in learning physics; learning as conceptual change and appropriation; interdisciplinary in STEM and, in particular, between physics and mathematics; teacher education; contemporary museology as a functional element in the design and development of museum itineraries centered on physics. 
The group's main research projects are carried out in the context of international collaborations and within national (PLS) and European projects (Erasmus +, Horizon2020). 

Preparation

In May 2024 a webinar will be organized for registered teachers to get to know each other, to start experimenting with the virtual environments of the course (Miro and CLAUDI) and to deepen into the organizational and thematic details of the summer school.

The summer school will use:

• Miro (miro.com) as collaborative space. If you don't already have an account, you can create a personal one for free in advance.
• CLAUDI platform (https://claudi.chemistry.uoc.gr/) to share teaching, didactical materials and data. Make sure you have created an account before your arrival.

Information and contacts

To visit the project site and access the CLAUDI e-learning platform, visit: www.climademy.eu

For information on Climademy Italian activities, click here

The training is connected with CLIMADEMY (nr: 101056066 - ERASMUS2027 Programme), the EU project for teachers' professional development on Climate Change. All european secondary school teachers, with both of scientific and humanistic background, are welcome!