RCE Dublin is delighted to engage as a translational partner through collaboration with An Taisce in the PULCHRA project. The PULCHRA project aims to explore the open schooling concept in the theme “Cities as urban ecosystems”.. It encourages and supports students in urban schools to investigate environmental and sustainability issues in their localities with a focus on the topic “Cities as urban ecosystems”. The PULCHRA consortium consists of twelve (12) partners from ten (10) EU Member States (Greece, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland (An Taisce), Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, and Sweden).
Τhe specific objectives of the project are:
- To develop and use a City Challenges Platform (including web based interaction and visualization modules) amenable to students, parents, educators, citizens, scientists, local administrators including a collaboration feature allowing experts to guide non-experts in terms of the interpretation of findings.
- To develop the City Science Teams with the participation of teachers and students, parents, professionals from the business community, scientists, local administrators, citizens, etc.
- To develop open source educational e-material, e-guidelines and smartphone app for analyzing the urban ecosystem and challenges demonstrating in detail the links between the cities as urban ecosystems and science (physics, chemistry, biology, geography, mathematics, materials science and informatics) and technology.
- To “Experience Science” through the organization of two pilot City Challenges, also open to the general public, in the science fields as related to the cities as urban ecosystems. Indicative themes to be explored are: “Converting school yards to open green spaces”, “Use of Earth Observation for the study of the urban ecosystem”, “Nature based solutions for climate mitigation plans at the neighbourhood scale”, “New materials for the built environment in urban ecosystems”, etc.
- To organize and implement, in coordination with local research centres, Universities and scientific associations, open activities, also in support of the City Challenges, to students, parents and citizens in general, under the theme “Meet the scientists – Introduce science in the city – approach the city as an urban ecosystem”.
- To bring real life projects as related to cities as urban ecosystems in the classrooms through focused collaborations with professionals and enterprises.
- To motivate students towards new technologies, mainly the use of Earth Observation (Copernicus program and Sentinel missions) and navigation tools, etc.
- To report the concept of the city as an urban ecosystem, as well as challenges, finding and solutions to the public through the City Reporters action.
For more information, contact Anthony Purcell at An Taisce on: apurcell@eeu.antaisce.org or visit the project website: https://pulchra-schools.eu/about/
