The “ECoNNECT” project (European Collaboration Network for Nature Education and Citizenship Training) is supported by the EU Erasmus+ program (Axis: Cooperative Partnerships in Adult Education) for a period of three years, starting in September 2022.

The project, which brings together partners from three European countries, France, Belgium and Greece, aims to help strengthening nature education and the professionalization of nature educators, through the creation of an innovative training course, adapted to the environmental, institutional and socio-economic context of partner countries.

Nature education forms an integral part of environmental education, however it emphasizes experiences ‘along with’ and ‘within’ the natural environment. As an educational process through a contact with nature (through observation, immersion…), it is based on first-hand experience, using multiple and complementary approaches (cognitive, sensory, emotional, etc.), which highlights the need for the respect of natural balances. For us, partners in this project, nature education, just like environmental education as a whole, is an education in eco-citizenship and for social justice.

The training we are developing aims to help stimulating, restoring and strengthening a deep, healthy and respectful link with nature, through the study of global issues and challenges (climate, biodiversity, etc.) and their impact in each territory, in the form of socially vivid questions. We prioritize a complex systems thinking, which applied to nature education involves, among others: learning through a sensory and sensitive immersion; a critical and democratic learning; considering the emotions as an integral part of the learning process; ethics as a discipline to be mobilized for learning (including the notions of solidarity, social justice, responsibility). The training course to be developed will consist of a common core and training ‘chapters’ (modules) comprising a choice of educational resources, adaptable to the training systems and the institutional and territorial context in which the training will take place.

The training course is being developed through a participatory approach, which actively involves the project’s target group: nature educators (teachers, trainers, facilitators), professionals, or undergoing training (students in disciplines related to the environment and education). A preliminary inventory of existing educational resources has been followed by an one week seminar in France, in November 2023, aiming the exchange of experiences, practices, tools and methods, bringing together nature education practitioners from the partner countries. The 30 participants, 10 educators from each one of the partner countries, under the coordination of the project’s pedagogical team, worked on the definition of the project's training course, sharing tools and methods, choosing the best practices, exchanging on the training's scheduling.

The participants have been engaged to experiment in their country and evaluate selected parts of the training course that they have helped to develop. A second seminar is going to take place in November 2024 in Belgium, bringing together the same participants. The gathering will allow the sharing of the results on the evaluation of educational resources, and will lead to the adaptation and refinement of the training course. The final product will be integrated into the project’s portal and will be available for online free access by educators in Europe.

The participatory approach of a ‘co-construction’ adopted during the seminars constitutes, in itself, a training process for the participants, as well as the exchange of the experiences is a form of a peer-to-peer education process, and therefore a contribution to the professionalization of the educators who will have participated.

The project as a whole has already helped to establish a network of educators and trainers involved in nature education in the three project countries, a network that is gradually being expanding at a European level, thus contributing to the institutional recognition of nature education in Europe.

Organizations participating in the 'ECoNNECT' project:

Réseau français d’éducation à la nature et à l’environnement, le FRENE (formerly ‘Nature and Education’ network – Project Coordinator), France  

Réseau Idée – Réseau Information et Diffusion en Education à l’Environnement, Belgium

‘écotopie’ Institut d’Eco-Pédagogie en Belgique, Belgium

Polis - International Network for Environmental Education, Greece 

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