Work Plan
LOESS will firstly map an overview of the current level of soil related knowledge in different educational levels. By connecting multiple actors in CoPs it is intended to find the gaps that need to be filled and the knowledge that needs to be connected and shared.
Secondly the projects will explore the educational needs among pupils, students, young professionals, and society across the European Union and Horizon Europe Associated Countries and develop teaching programmes and materials including an Atlas of Soil Education. LOESS will co-create and test pedagogical techniques to encourage effective knowledge flows and discourse between educators and learners and between different knowledge systems. It will carry out activities in 15 countries and provide hands-on activities related to soil education through Community Engaged Research and Learning. LOESS will also engage with public authorities and institutions responsible for primary, secondary and tertiary education and provide targeted recommendations and resources for improved knowledge enhancement. The course and modules for soil education will be co-create including virtual reality/augmented reality applications. These resources will target the different stages of education and connect to global and local challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss and the Sustainable Development Goals. Capacity building, knowledge exchange and peer-to-peer learning will accompany LOESS’ education and dissemination activities.
Finally, LOESS will organize focused campaigns and events to exchange knowledge, promote discussion on the results and encourage higher uptake. LOESS will put special attention to overcoming inter-and transdisciplinary misunderstandings and to find common interests and mutual benefits instead of supporting single needs. By participatory workshops in each country and international joint workshops. To support a quality assurance system EQAVET will be incorporated.
Work package WP1 – Project Coordination / Management
The main objectives are contract management and communication with the European Commission; manage and control all budget affairs and the collaboration with the project partners in terms of processes, tools and procedures; coordinate internal communications, and organise meetings; ensure quality assurance and control and validate the project plan and its implementation; provide quality guidelines and provide continuous feedback; review and analyse risks and resolve conflicts and guarantee the full achievement of the project objectives.
Lead Beneficiary - WILA
WP2 – Exploring soil awareness, content gaps, teaching needs and educational visions
The main objectives are to establish CoPs; develop a roadmap (guidelines) to explore actors’ and stakeholders’ perceptions on soil and their educational needs; conduct a review of present and previous soil basic knowledge; conduct focus groups; understand and reflect on the (public) perception of soil among students, teachers and the general public; assess the educational materials’ success-factors and co-analyse findings and discuss deficiencies and gaps in national reflective workshops and one online cross-national workshop.
Lead Beneficiary - AMU
WP3 – Content Definition and Implementation: Co-creative development and testing of target group-oriented soil education measures
The main objectives are to create and test soil teaching resources, modules and tools for primary, secondary high-school teachers to introduce the concept of soil health; test the developed resources in pilot schools in 15 countries, two VET environments and at least 10 universities; design learning modules for cross-cutting utilisation in schools and universities and for the general public (crowd-mapping, augmented reality…) and collate an online toolkit with targeted educational material and best practice on soil teaching.
Lead Beneficiary - VA
WP4 – Capacity building and Campaigning
The main objectives are to create a feasible and sustainable strategy for campaigning; inspire, gather, and involve external parties into the LOESS community; deploy campaigning measures and social media activities; implement four tailored campaigns for extended use of developed modules and materials; provide consultancy, twinning and peer learning for consortium partners, multi-actor panels and target groups; prganise an online workshop for editors, journalists and producers of TV programmes and magazines for kids and youth and organise an International Summer Camp across Europe, linked with an overarching online event.
Lead Beneficiary - CPN
WP5 – Co-Evaluation, Result Valorisation, Replication and Sustainability
The main objectives are to promote a framework for evaluation and validation, which will support the understanding of public values on soil and stakeholder needs for soil health education; involve the Consortium members in formative evaluation exercises to reflect on the project progress and ways to identify the need for changes; offer mentoring and feedback to the CoPs; develop and apply key performance indicators to determine and assess the effectiveness of project’s activities and assess each of the modules regarding their potential and sustainability, focusing on drivers and barriers for implementation.
Lead Beneficiary - UNISS
WP6 – Dissemination and cross-networking
The main objectives of this WP are to ensure the overall coordination of exchanges between consortium, AVB, experts and learners as well as the dissemination and exploitation of results towards the different audiences; provide a sound dissemination strategy to foster engagement of the project target groups; closely interact with WP4 to develop targeted campaigns; provide all partners with a professional communication package and promotional videos; organise outreach activities towards the general public through events and publications in traditional media and ensure the dissemination of results at academic conferences.
Lead Beneficiary - ACUP
WP7 – Ethics requirements
The objective is to ensure compliance with the ‘ethics requirements’ set out in this work package.
Lead Beneficiary - WILA
