The project

Education for Environmental Sustainability: Creative Learning Centers and Digital Tools

ECHO, acronym for “Education for Environmental Sustainability: Creative Learning Centers and Digital Tools” is an Erasmus+ Key Action 2 Adult Education project, modeled on the specific needs of the European adult learning community in the field of Sustainable Development, Sustainability and Environmental Protection. The topic of ECHO is therefore composed by several, important keywords such as: environment, sustainability, promotion of ecological perspectives and attitudes, that is, European and global challenges that require complex thinking and layered design approaches. ECHO is implemented by an international partnership that involves organizations with extensive experience, coming together to devise a strategic path capable of rethinking educational spaces, concretely creating new ones, oriented towards the future.

Adult education is therefore combined with the primary languages ​​of creativity, cultural heritage and digital innovation. The starting point of ECHO is the recognition of the gaps in the various European education and training systems in the field of Sustainability and Environmental Protection, as well as in the field of Sustainable Development. The project therefore wishes to promote the growth of systemic awareness and the value of Environmental Sustainability as an educational path, leveraging the relationship between anthropic and ecosystem and thus outlining, in a simple and attractive way, new habits and behaviors that are both concrete and rooted in the individual, moreover being supported by adequate critical thinking and models of active and responsible citizenship.

ECHO’s products are an architecture – digital as well – with a high educational impact, aimed at empowering and increasing the skills of a vast and stratified adult audience in the field of Environmental Sustainability. The project is made up of mixed units, placing contemporary cultural and educational needs at the center.

Goals and implementation

During the three-year project life cycle, the following will be implemented:

An educational, innovative exhibit in Palermo (Italy), oriented towards the future, whose aim is to enhance awareness in the field of Environmental Sustainability Education by creative, digital and immersive means.

A digital and virtual place, an interactive and culturally attractive resource for the adult target groups: an immersive learning platform that archives European good practices in the field of Environmental Sustainability, drawing on virtuous practices and attitudes promoted by European organizations and citizens.

Resources and activities aimed at the acquisition of awareness in the field of Environmental Education designed specifically for educators and youth workers at work with both adults and Youth: updated kits that enhance the educators, in order to facilitate the promotion of Environmental Education on various levels.

Extensive attention will be focused on the best forms of environmental activism in Europe: an educational and motivational kit available to educators and youth workers, enhancing their curriculum, facilitating future implementation and dissemination.