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Goodbye from NBS EduWORLD and hello to a bright NBS future!
After 3 years of nature-positive community-building across Europe, NBS EduWORLD has completed its goal of making nature-based solutions (NBS) in educationa reality!
With a focus on formal, non-formal and informal education, this Horizon Europe project coordinated by European Schoolnet® enthusiastically followed its vision to promote NBS literacy and create a community for NBS in education that is available to all. Since its start in 2022, not only did NBS EduWORLD organise many interactive workshops, webinars, activities and community-gathering events in person and online, but it also created a large number of valuable, GreenComp-inspired free resources for educators, policy makers and anyone interested in NBS.
Seeing the value of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, NBS EduWORLD joined forces with Scientix® for many of its activities to seamlessly blend the STE(A)M and NBS communities. This supported especially the capacity-building and teaching of NBS among NBS starters and advanced educators.
Together, NBS EduWORLD and Scientix®:
- Launched two MOOCs on bringing nature-based solutions in the classroom (for formal education, and formal/non-formal education);
- Collected and published learning scenarios, a booklet of good practices and stories of implementation for formal education, a booklet with activities for non-formal education;
- Launched the NBS EduWORLD Discussion Space;
- Co-organised the record-breaking 2025 STEM Discovery Campaign;
- Created the NBS School Expertise, a joint initiative with the Scientix® STEM School Label, which recognises schools’ commitment to nature-positive education.
But that is not all!
NBS EduWORLD also held two international Summer Schools in Greece and created the NBS EduWORLD Academy for teachers with expert-level NBS knowledge and interest in living labs and the whole-school approach. For schools, Guidelines for formal and non-formal educators with little to no and advanced NBS knowledge, as well as Scenarios for plausible futures for NBS education were created. The project created 50 learning units for Higher education and professional training and piloted them, trained NBS Ambassadors in Youth Centres and organised a Summer Camp for youth in Türkiye, held an online Hackathon for students, and launched an NBS app for educators, students and the general public. NBS EduWORLD played an active role as a coordinator of the Task Force on NBS Education (part of NetworkNature), where it facilitated discussions among NBS projects and professionals, and supported their needs by creating tailor-made NBS education resources.
Addressing policy makers’ interests, NBS EduWORLD researched the state of the art in NBS education in Europe and in Higher Education, held interviews, policy learning sessions and two NBS Education Summits, as well as released Policy recommendations for Ministries of Education, and a Youth inclusion toolkit and NBS education virtual flipbook for local authorities and NBS demonstrators.
Through its wide-reaching work, NBS EduWORLD brought together researchers, policy makers and local authorities, formal and non-formal (creative) educators, schools and universities, students and youth, NBS professionals, nature-based enterprises and industry members, museums, football clubs and the general public in Europe and beyond. Local activities took place across 10+ demonstrator sites and partner locations in Belgium, France, Portugal, Ireland, Serbia, Moldova, Italy, Hungary, Türkiye, Greece, Romania, Netherlands and Spain. NBS EduWORLD used a variety of pedagogical methods and approaches across all education levels and supported many existing communities in formal and non-formal education, while also building its own. This, indeed, is the best representation of the vision of its founders!
You can access the NBS EduWORLD legacy on Scientix® even after the project’s end, and on the NBS EduWORLD portal.
We will be sharing more about green projects at European Schoolnet® in the future issues of the Scientix Digest’s “Green Corner” with the support of BUSTIC EDU!