STEP 6. Communicate/Share solution

The students have now completed their mission, and if the mission is accomplished the students have a result to be communicated to others; the students critical interaction could include renewed dialogues with citizens, municipality administration services and with the students’ families. The student teams can choose any form of relevant communication media; oral and/or visual (a model, poster, slide show, website, video. local press, Facebook etc.), in order to communicate how they accomplished the climate change mission. Considerations on who are relevant parties for the information must be conducted; other students?, parents?, the students’ social and gaming networks?, the school board?, the headmaster?, the mayor? Etc.

Your role as a teacher

Perhaps the mission was to establish better Wi-Fi at the School, or to have healthier food in the School canteen, or to have better waste sorting in the Municipality? Results from different missions will have different audiences. Of course, sharing experience in class will be relevant to many of the classmates; what did the different groups do, when, how and why? What was the result of the mission and what complications or recommendations will the outcome of the mission bring about? Who are actually the relevant parties to know about this? If the mission e.g. was that the canteen food become healthier, who should be told and in what way so that it happens? What arguments would be needed? What does it mean that the food is healthier? How can the healthier food be delivered without it being more expensive? Etc. As a teacher, you can help students organize the information so the target audience buys the message, and changes will appear.

Final evaluation

The mission is accomplished, but to what extent was the mission a success? Did the students use and learn science during the mission? As a perspective look at the students missions, you could ask the students; “If you had to do the mission over again, what would you change, and why?”, “Do you see any weak spots in your mission?”, “In which ways can you improve your methods in order to complete your mission in a satisfactory way?” etc.

Recommendations and comments

- from the teachers and students in the project to teachers and students who would like to start working with Climate Change Education:

“If youth could receive legal positions or even financial endorsements, they would certainly back that ideas of climate change education a lot. It's another form of motivation for them, and that would be a better way to hasten the meeting of various quotas and mission accomplishment in their projects” (Teacher from Lithuania).

“It really helps to simply communicate. Knowing what each of us do makes it possible to fill each other’s gaps. For example the president spends his time on actually dealing with the issue and announcing his plans to the older generation, while us, as students, could visit the younger fellas in primary schools and share with them what we know, so that everyone knows about the current situation” (Student from Poland).

“The students managed extremely well when it came to real climate change missions, they somehow knew exactly what to do and their ideas were fresh and new. They decided to share info in museums, make presentations (on topics such as the climatic and epidemiological situation and vaccines) and organize field trips to chemical or solar production companies. They defined Climate change missions as "tasks that were meant to raise awareness on important climate topics such as global warming, food waste, /water droughts and epidemiology through the lens of open science schooling" (Teacher from Lithuania).

“It is advisable to encourage the students to experience the satisfaction from the work they have done and from mission dissemination. Students felt a huge gratification when they could share their ideas with students and teachers from other countries and later with students, teachers, representatives of local authorities, universities, organisations, and so on. Whenever they encountered some problems like shyness or doubt in their abilities, they learned how to overcome difficulties with the help from teachers and their colleagues. This way they gained self-confidence, life experience and feeling of fulfilment” (Teacher from Poland).