With Climate Link, the University of Antwerp forms the link between climate science and education. Through teaching packages for teachers, interesting blog posts and workshops about the climate, Climate Link lets students get to work on this topic themselves. Arne Ven, both teacher and scientist, and Eric Struyf, research manager of the Global Change Ecology Centre, gave us more information about this exciting project. They explain how there is a great demand from education for correct and understandable information about the climate.
The climate lives among the youth
“The climate is a topic that has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially among young people. Just think of the different climate marches. Partly because of this, a great demand has arisen from education for the latest insights and information about the climate. You can find a lot online, but it is often difficult to distinguish between whole and half falsehoods from scientifically substantiated information. It is also not always easy to view all information as a whole. That is where Climate Link wants to make a difference. Projects that we carry out together with schools show us that it is best to let the teacher transfer the information to the students. This gave rise to the idea of developing teaching packages that teachers can use. In this way we combine the strengths of scientists and teachers”.
The link between education and science
Arne Ven tells us what his task is within Climate Link: “My task as a teacher and scientist is to form the link between education and science. In the past year I have been very active with the layout of teaching packages. I made a first version in consultation with teachers and scientists. In this way they contain the most recent scientific information, which the teachers and students can use themselves. I also give workshops on climate change in schools, at events of the University of Antwerp (e.g. Studio STEM) and at events of the cities of Antwerp and Sint-Niklaas, which have contributed to this project.”
Eric Struyf is also an important link within Climate Link: “As research manager of GCE (Global Change Ecology Centre), I laid the foundations for Climate Link together with a few professors. After all, we received a lot of questions from schools about climate education, so the idea started to grow to do something with this. We wanted to set up a structural project instead of an accumulation of ad-hoc initiatives. The University of Antwerp has supported this vision and provided us with basic funding to start up the project. The cities of Sint-Niklaas and Antwerp also contributed, because they also feel the need for scientifically substantiated climate education. Climate science is something that does not stand still, evolves continuously and provides new insights. That is why it is so important that we help build the future of tomorrow, by bringing that evolving knowledge to the students.”
A unique collaboration
“We are currently working closely with 15 schools in Sint-Niklaas and Antwerp. We worked out the first teaching packages together with motivated teachers. The intention is that next year we can make the various teaching packages available to teachers throughout Flanders. Arne Ven is working on this full-time. We also reach schools with the blogs we write. These blogs attract a lot of readers: our blog post with scientifically based support for climate youth was read about 17,806 times in the week after publication.”
“What we currently offer is something unique in Flanders. We are already noticing a lot of interest from the Netherlands. There are many interesting English blogs to be found, but much less in Dutch. The visitor data of our website shows the great interest. In time, all our teaching packages will also be free to download.
The content of the lesson packages
“Our first offer consists of two more “theoretical” and two very practical teaching packages. In the “theoretical” teaching packages, we try to frame the climate problem and the possible solutions in a clear manner, by articulate the complex matter in an understandable manner.”
“The practical teaching package consists of hands-on experiments that the students perform and interpret themselves. Here we build on our experience from citizen science projects such as 'CurieuzeNeuzen in de Tuin' and 'Handsome K(n)oppen'. We are working on building the experiments in such a way that the students do innovative research, where they can really make a difference.”
Your gift allows Climate Link to continue to grow
“We are very ambitious with Climate Link and we want to continue to grow and exist. Currently, our offer only consists of teaching packages and workshops, but we would like to expand this in the future. We are thinking here of class visits to the University of Antwerp and our research projects, or a kind of internship for interested students. But first and foremost we want to build on the first positive experiences, keep our teaching packages up-to-date, and also develop new packages in consultation with the teachers, for which we also hope to collaborate with other research teams and departments. We hope to guarantee permanent funding for this, including through the Antwerp University Fund. We are open to collaborations with external partners, whereby we naturally always want to maintain our academic objectivity.”
“Currently, our project is limited in effectiveness and time horizon. We can currently finance the roll-out of the first teaching packages. In order to develop new packages, involve schools in research and, above all, to keep the information permanently up-to-date, we need a permanent employee who we can continue to employ. In this way, we hope in due course to create a permanent hub for climate education and climate science, and to convert our pilot project into a sustainable initiative.”