Climate change is the greatest challenge of our times and humans are recognized as a major cause of Climate Change (UNESCO, 2009). The EU has launched the Green Deal initiative to raise awareness on climate change, industry innovation and more, while the European Education Area initiated a special Education for Climate Change Coalition, pledging for concrete actions made by individuals and collective actors at the local, regional and national levels. In this respect, the role of education in addressing climate change is increasingly recognized. Despite the effort happening on an EU level it seems that there is no specific behavioral change towards a greener future and Researchers argue that to find how to communicate the climate crisis in a way that would inspire behavioural change, one should look into how humans process information “narratives can help to find better ways to communicate science”. The partnership has also identified needs for teachers for late primary and secondary education related to:

• Lack of effective strategies, practices and tools for delivering innovative, action driven Climate Change Education: In general teachers face various difficulties to apply innovative competence-based teaching in their settings as they are not trained in such practices while not feeling confident to teach for climate change due to the absence of clarity about the most effective teaching strategies.
• Weaknesses in Digital Competences for Educators (DCE) increase when it comes to situations or tools specifically related to online teaching. The need for proper DCE has been fundamental for the avoidance of disruption in teaching- learning processes. Teachers’ digital tools’ needs have increased especially post-covid19 where more knowledge is needed than the regular digital communication skills. This leads to the need for suitable training on DCE in a structured manner; it can be said that covid-19 has emphasized the importance of teacher professional development for online and blended learning.

In view of the above, project ActGreenStory (AGS) in response to these challenges, capitalizing on past projects, and innovative education methodologies and trainings for green skills, with the use of digital storytelling and creativity seeks to empower teachers towards achieving greener behaviors, shaping tomorrow’s climate action changemakers, with participatory methods, following a holistic approach. Digital technologies in all their facets coupled with strong narratives can engage students towards becoming tomorrow’s green stewards.

Objectives

Through ActGreenStory (AGS), capitalizing on past projects, and innovative education methodologies and trainings for green skills, with the use of digital storytelling and creativity we seek to empower teachers towards achieving greener behaviors, shaping tomorrow’s climate action change-makers along with the engagement of families, hence following a holistic approach. Digital technologies in all their facets coupled with strong narratives can engage students towards becoming tomorrow’s green stewards. Through this process teachers, students and their environment will identify and act upon environmental problems through creative thinking as active citizens and not just as observers. Our objectives are to:

• design new-age educational material for students to use technology towards greener attitudes and actions,
• empower teachers with new methods and tools to urge them activate students’ inner green activist,
• create accessible online material for further use and capitalization,
• develop an interactive online platform for the connection of students from all over Europe to take common actions for climate change and become a living network.