An exciting new project in Slovenia is systematically introducing climate goals and content into the education system in Slovenia from preschool education to adult education. The implementation of the project is coordinated by the two ministrites: Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning and Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. The project implementers are National Education Institute Slovenia, Institute of the RS for Vocational Education and Training, Slovenian Institute for Adult Education and Centre for School and Outdoor Education. The project is financed by the Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning from the Climate change funds.

The key activities of the project will be the preparation and implementation of a comprehensive awareness and education program about climate change in the context of education and training for sustainable development, which each public institution will prepare, test and evaluate for its level or field of education.

At the Slovenian Institute for Adult Education, a new educational community learning approach for environment related learning, using citizen science (CS) is being tested. A whole Slovenian wide CS campaign was launched in May 2022 to recruit over 100 volunteers. The volunteers were sent a package of sunflowewr seeds which the volunteers planted and observed their growth. Support and communication, including community communication, is provided regularly and continuously. The project is currently at the phase, when most volunteers are actively observing and classifying pollinators in sunflowers.

Collected data in nature based CS projects can help to understand the large scale patterns in nature, needed to adapt to local and global environmental changes, and the needs for conservation and resource management. Citizen science approach combines benefits of cost-efficient method to obtain environmental data in wider spatio-temporal scale than reserachers could collect on their own, while promotes authentic learning experience. Such approach can fill the gap in adult education for sustainable development and global citizenship education in regard of transformative skills and competencies.

However, the primary goal of Slovenian Institute for Adult Education is not the collection of environmental data but testing a new learning approach, its backdrops and successes. This is its role and also potential contribution to environmental governance, where a large amount of literature prioritises learning-as-we go approaches to change behaviour. In addition to scientific contribution in the topical field of pollinators, we expect increases in awareness, knowledge, and skills amongst the participants which will also translate into behavioural changes such as maintaining botanically diverse gardens, creating flower-rich habitats to inhibit pollinator declines. At the same time, the observing exersise, which happens in multiple stages encourages the participants to  connect their observations (e.g. differences) with the local, regional and global events.

Details about the project you can find in ID card (in Slovenian).

The photos were contributed by the participants taking part in the project.

Johanna Robinson, a senior adviser at SAE, coordinates the citizen science activities at the »Climate goals and content in education« project and reseraches the potential of its use in adult education.