C3S Edu Demo receives positive feedback at leading education and training events
On Friday 17th April 2020, WEMC’s Education & Program Officer and C3S Edu Demo Project Manager Kit Rackley presented the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) Climate and Energy Education Demonstrator at the Geographical Association eConference 2020 (GAeConf20). The Geographical Association (GA) is a highly-regarded and well-known registered charity based in the UK, which acts as an ‘association for teachers of Geography’. Its sphere of influence is known to extend to ‘geography-related’ subjects and internationally, particularly to teachers from international schools based in Europe. Their Annual Conference and Exhibition is a large-scale gathering that takes place each year over three days to share the “latest ideas, support, and advice in geography education for students, teachers and academics”. It is attended by hundreds of delegates and has a level of prestige which has allowed it to draw influential people as keynote speakers like Danny Dorling, Hans Rosling and Kate Raworth. This year it took place online due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The webinar session showcasing the C3S Edu Demo was attended by 69 delegates, and focused on the importance and relevance of teaching GIS skills and climate change issues. Delegates engaged in a series of activities throughout the webinar, including a quiz helping them to get to know the C3S Edu Demo and a series of survey opinions to gather their thoughts about teaching climate change issues, and what syllabus topics can be supported by using the tool.
At the end of the webinar session, 92% of delegates who completed the survey said they were ‘likely’ or ‘very likely’ to use the C3S Edu Demo in their teaching. Sentiments shared via the survey’s comment box, webinar chat and social media were very positive.
This tool is incredible!!! Evidencing climate change projections with data. Currently demo version https://t.co/MCEP7uH1Lw Absolutely incredible dataset to explore with links to published research #climatechange #geography Thanks @geogramblings #GAeConf20 pic.twitter.com/kDz6P1cwQc
— Melanie Froude (@Froudo_baggins) April 17, 2020
I was so impressed when @missbytheway shared this with me earlier. It’s lovely to see practical outcomes stemming from conference inspiration. Thank you to @geogramblings (it was an awesome session) & @The_GA for all the #gaeconf20 inspiration, & well done @missbytheway 👏 https://t.co/1hi2YjbpuO pic.twitter.com/s1C49uwL4s
— UoBTeach Geography (@UoB_Geography) May 12, 2020
Access the webinar presentation and related documents via the GAeConf20 Session Downloads page, under the ‘Beginning Teacher’ pathway.
Other training and education initiatives recognise the value of the C3S Edu Demo
The C3S Edu Demo also featured in Module 5 (Renewable Energy) of the Copernicus MOOC. The Copernicus MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course, free and accessible to all. It is aimed towards professionals from the public sector and entrepreneurs, with an interest in using geo-information data to address societal challenges and develop new business opportunities. Author of the module, Stijn Vermoote (C3S User Engagement Manager at ECMWF), gave an overview of C3S’s work was given regarding how it is an “enabler of the downstream climate service market”, including supporting collaborative projects to develop visual applications that use C3S products like the Climate Data Store. While other C3S visual applications developed were mentioned, the C3S Edu Demo was the showcase example for participants of the module to explore.
As awareness and usage of the C3S Edu Demo increases, more engagements by third-parties are being planned. The Polish Institute of Environmental Protection plan to include the C3S Edu Demo as part of a series of e-learning modules published via the Moodle platform, the eTwinning Project led by the British Council plan to include the tool in an upcoming campaign resource, and the Office for Climate Education based in Paris have shown a desire to use the C3s Edu Demo in future training events.
Exciting developments to come
Guided by feedback from users, work continues on improving and enhancing the C3S Edu Demo. The use of a global dataset for users to explore changes outside of Europe, and the compatibility for mobiles are just two examples. Watch this space for future training events, workshops and webinars!
Access the C3S Edu Demo via https://c3s-edu.wemcouncil.org and visit the project’s webpage to find a range of support material, including educational resources produced by teachers.
