"The EU Climate Action Strategy considers young and childhood students a critical sector of civil society to promote Climate Action (CA). Youth and childhood ’s commitments (or lack of it) today will lead to institutional commitments (or lack of them) tomorrow. However, the Eurobarometer surveys highlight a noticeable gap between the concern of children and young Europeans for Climate Change (CC) and their personal commitments & skills on CA.Research conducted by education sciences experts confirm that scientific knowledge is not enough to change children and young attitudes to actively engage with CC. They require a social conscience and a citizen responsibility that emerge from values and education.In pre-school/primary formal education, the pupils are motivated about topics related to earth care and CC. But in the school´s curriculum these topics are only “touched on” and mainly in subjects related to science. Thus, motivation, opportunity and ability to act decrease when the pupils become aware that CC and CA seem not linked to their cultural, emotional and ethical values. Recommendations for new methods in young and childhood formal education are central to the EU Climate Action Strategy. With that on the mind, it is necessary that future teachers of pre-school & primary learn about how they can link the scientific knowledge about CC with cultural, emotional and ethical values to more effectively educate children’s minds and acts.The religious beliefs are some of the most powerful values to significantly influence a community’s understanding and experience of CC adaptation. Over the past years, most religious communities have released statements on CC and the need to educate in Climate Action. One of the most active religions is the Catholic one. The Francesc Pope´s encyclical LS 201 related to education on the UN Sustainable Development Goals has had a lot of impact on an international level in the context of the Agenda 2030.The CHANCES consortium is composed of 3 universities and a EdTech SME. These 4 organizations, expert in education sciences, catholic religion and sustainable development declare the ambition to innovate through a powerful tool: to construct a 3 ECTS itinerary for education degrees/masters coupled with new assessment mechanisms by means of digital OERs. With this itinerary, future teachers of pre-school & primary schools will learn how to bring the CC subject into the classroom linking Catholic religion values and science. These 4 organizations will work in association with several local working groups consisting of pre-school/primary schools and Catholic bodies which are responsible for the curriculum of the subject of Catholic religious education. The CHANCES methodology combines, for the first time, scientific knowledge with some of the most powerful values & beliefs, the religious ones, increasing the effectiveness of the formal education system’s understanding and experience of CC competences. The project aims to invest in HIE professors and students of education sciences degrees and postgraduate studies. Thanks to CHANCES, they will start and lead their CA venture for when the moment will come to teach in pre-school & primary schools.CHANCES develops next IOS:• An innovative METHODOLOGY will permit that the future teachers of pre-school/primary, who want to be specialised in the subject of catholic religious education, will learn how to bring the CC subject into the classroom linking religion and science.• By means of the new methodology, a new CURRICULUM on the topic ""How Catholic religion education can educate pupils on CC and CA"" will be developed for degrees/master´s in sciences education and Catholic religious education. The course will consist of 3 ECTS consisting of few face-to-face classrooms, most instruction being e-workshop and self-directed learning via e-portfolio.• A European E-PORTFOLIO will be adapted and improved. It will be used by students of the new CC curriculum to collect artifacts & reflections. The eportfolio will serve to:- Evidence of the new kind of competences & skills needed to link religion and science for CC teaching- Use it by HIE students during their practices at the schools. The result will be the first digital repository of best practices related to learning CA through religious education- Make HIE students more digitally literate when teaching religion related to CCThe IOs will be piloted in a degree and/or master at 3 universities and at pre-school/primary schools in Spain, Italy & Poland. Training & face to face or blending learning implementation actions, one transnational and several local ones, will ensure that the project is not only FOR professors, students & alumni but also BY them. CHANCES´ impact on deans, schools ‘principals & policymakers will make them permeable to the acquisition and validation of CC skills linked with the cultural and ethical values of students to increase their commitment towards CA."

Skills in STEM are becoming an increasingly important part of basic literacy in today’s knowledge society. In line with an important benchmark of EU strategies for 2020 (at least 95% of children - from 4 to compulsory school age - should participate in early childhood education), the project addressed the need for a systemic and integrated approach to ECEC by identifying key issues and questions for an effective STEM education. The project consortium, coordinated by Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow, included 5 partners coming from 4 European countries: IT, PL, ES, IR. The project aimed at enhancing the quality of ECEC by A/ strengthening the scientific and methodological skills of preschool teachers by providing them with a collection of innovative resources and creating social network to exchange ideas and support each other in implementing innovations in their own environment; B/ supporting scientific thinking development in young children by providing them with positive, joyful experiences in learning science, strengthening their engagement and cognitive curiosity, thus preventing under-skilling in STEM learning in the future; C/ supporting parents involvement; D/ raising an awareness of school managers and policy makers responsible for implementing STEM ideas into the preschool core-curricula. The following actions were taken within the project frame:1/ The „Report” from international comparative research was published - the diagnosis of teacher’s knowledge and opinions about the possibilities to introduce STEM education on a preschool level. The diagnosis included data on both, qualitative and quantitive analyses, along with the selection of important literature available in English and national languages and comparative analyses of core-curricula in project countries. As a result, the matrix of core STEM skills for preschool children was designed; 2/ The collection of STEM resources for young children (Teaching Set) was designed and published on project website. The idea of a “poor” lab (equipped with easily accessible tools, materials and reagents) was used to relate STEM activities with food and cooking process - „Preschool kitchen as a scientific laboratory”. Thanks to such connection STEM activities offered in the project might be easily re-created at home environment. Exploring basic scientific concepts related to food (e.g oxidation, fermentation, CO2, sweetness, density etc.) should not only help children to perceive food as an object of scientific investigations, but also make learning experiences meaningful, realistic, useful in real life context, and as subsequently develop healthy eating habits;3/ Learning Communities were created on different social media - 4 national and 1 international: to test and evaluate the Teaching Set. An international audience was invited to verify the resources collected by project team, exchange ideas, search for new innovative methods of teaching, design new resources. With the help of teachers network video instructions were created, to provide methodological support to everyone interested in using STEM activities in real-life context. The community will remain open after the end of the project, producing benefits even beyond the duration of the research and involving an increasing number of users.4/ Participants of Learning Community were invited to test educational effectiveness of STEM resources with children. Learning Pathways were designed as a flexible tool allowing teachers to perceive STEM education as a long-term process rather than a single experiment. Each Learning Pathway was described as a logical sequence of lesson scenarios - a kind of intellectual road which needs to be taken by a learner to master certain skills or concepts. 5/ Finally, all the described elements were integrated into one interactive, user-friendly Toolkit providing the teachers and educators with both, methodological and theoretical guidelines for early STEM education. The Toolkit is now available in 5 languages: PL, EN, ES, CA, and IT.Generally circa 1881 participants were involved in project actions, including 135 inservice teacher, 579 pre-service teachers, 636 parents and 566 children.The Klab4Kids website not only created a map of the European best practices in innovative science education methods which allows the participating universities to reinforce ECEC curricula by introducing STEM ideas into existing courses. Currently it serves as a tool to promote an international exchange of best practices in fostering active STEM learning, and to encourage teachers to find new, modern and interactive methods for effectively science teaching. In the long term, the Klab4Kids action will also contribute towards achieving the Europe 2020 education target by improving STEM skills among young people – less than 15% of pupils under-performing by 2020 – and increasing the range of innovative products that reflect societal needs.