Fantastic opportunity for Irish Transition Year students to take part in online climate discussions with students across Europe

Dublin City University invites two Transition Year (TY) classes from Irish schools to be involved in an exciting Europe-wide project to directly be involved in the decisions that affect our lives. If your school is interested in taking part, please email [email protected].

About the project

The main objective of the EUComMeet project, funded under the Horizon 2020 programme, is to explore whether citizens’ participation in informed discussions can improve both learning and decision-making processes.

To do this, we are designing and testing an online platform that promotes the development of participatory spaces which will allow citizens from different countries, who speak different languages, to interact using live translation software.

What is involved?

Three online moderated climate discussion events

Your students will take part in three discussion events held between November – December 2022. Discussion events take place on each of the following dates: 28/29 Nov, 5/6 Dec and 12/13 December. Dates will be confirmed with schools based on availability.

During the events students will log in to an online discussion platform to interact with students from other Irish cities and from a number of EU countries about the climate and sustainability. Please note each student requires a device to access to the discussion (such as laptop or iPad).

Check-ins

Between each discussion event, your students will log on to the online platform two times to check in on the debate.

Surveys

Questionnaires will be administered before the first discussion event (November 2022), after the third discussion event (December 2022) and finally in spring 2023.

What’s in it for the students?

Through participation, TY students will develop transferable skills required when working with others in groups, and in broader democratic society. The project aligns with learning outcomes (LOs) under topic 4 in the Active Citizenship strand of the Senior Cycle Politics and Society curriculum: “Rights and Responsibilities in Communication with Others”. Students involved in the project will benefit from:

• taking part in and learning about deliberative processes
• engaging with different viewpoints (LO 4.1)
• developing skills in listening and communicating while interacting with students from other schools in Ireland, France, Germany, Italy and Poland (LO 4.2)
• acknowledging differences and negotiating and resolving conflicts through exposure to diverse opinions about topics like climate, equality and economy (LO 4.3)
• seeking and evaluating information and ideas (LO 4.4)
• relating democratic practices in small groups to the sorts of practices that are appropriate for citizens in wider society (LO 4.5)

Detailed information can be provided by either visiting the project website https://www.eucommeet.eu/ or contacting Emma Clarke, [email protected].

Politics and Society Curriculum: https://www.curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/ee597f5d-180a-4531-ba50-2f4c966f2df3/Politics-and-Society-new.pdf