The NKUA Environmental Education Lab (EEL-NKUA) has recently contributed to a teacher training webinar entitled ‘Greening my school, greening my city: Pedagogical approaches and digital tools.’ Dimitris Gkotzos and Naya Grillia, from the EEL-NKUA team, talked about how the students can use citizen science as a powerful tool of environmental and biodiversity learning in schools. The presentation was also an opportunity to share ideas for pedagogical uses of Pl@ntNet in educational projects, specifically on school gardens and urban green areas.
“The most exciting part is that all the information we shared is based on the experience gained from Cos4Cloud collaboration and the research conducted by the NKUA team. So, we were able to develop and propose some real educational scenarios to the teachers!”, says Naya Grillia.
During the workshop, the NKUA team introduced the citizen science concept to the participants as an idea and a field of practice in Europe and worldwide; and the citizen observatories as the main structures supporting citizen sience activities. It was also a chance to share the aims and tasks promoted by the Cos4Cloud project, including the citizen observatories that participate in Cos4Cloud. In particular, they shared and discussed ideas regarding pedagogical uses of Pl@ntnet within the context of environmental education activities in primary and secondary education. “We explained the Pl@ntNet project, which we’ve proposed to be integrated in Greek school practice, as one of the examples of the Cos4Cloud’s citizen observatories,” states Dimitris.
The webinar was held on January the 28th, organized by the Elefsina Environmental Education Center in collaboration with the Environmental Education Officers at several Directorates of Primary and Secondary Education in the Greater Athens area. More than 120 Greek school teachers attended it.
