Tesar, Marek

Although most of East Africa’s volcanoes are currently dormant they could erupt in the future, while 25% of Africa’s volcanoes had eruptions in the last 100 years. How to be prepared and respond to natural hazards such as volcanoes, need to be communicated to young children, learning settings and communities. The project presented here has been funded by IUGG and supported by IAVCEI within the priority area Geoscience Education and Outreach in Developing Countries. It aims to present the Paper Volcanoes toolkit and create a dialogue between science and the indigenous knowledge to communicate natural hazards to children considering their identity and context. The Paper Volcanoes Laboratory toolkit is an experience based activity enriched with pedagogical elements, created within the INGV Educational Group, to help early childhood children to familiarize themselves with natural hazards including volcanoes. The project focuses on the Turkana rural setting in Kenya where the regional volcanism is known by geologists or indigenous people through their traditional stories. Here we present the methodology used, the preparatory pilot involving four universities students and Turkana early childhood teachers to experience the Paper volcano toolkit and the extended pilot. The pilot was run in September 2022 in Lodwar and consisted of four themed workshops involving stakeholders, teachers (40) and elders. The pilot enabled teachers to hear the stories about the Turkana mountains, experience the paper toolkit, to share ideas, to connect with geoscience specialists and sociologists.

Because of limited activities are designed for early childhood children on geoscience natural hazards we have been exploring playful approaches to let young children to familiarize with them starting with volcanoes. In fact, learning theory suggests the we need to incorporate a wide range of skills and competencies in the learning process, not just cognitive skills, and development is dependent upon such interactions [1]. Here we introduce the recently funded by IUGG (International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics) pilot project which will allow teachers and educators of children of pre-primary and primary education based in developing countries of Eastern Africa to familiarize with Earth Science through engaging object play Paper Volcanoes Laboratory (PVL) program. Paper Volcanoes Laboratory is an experience based activity created within INGV Educational group, which in the last five years resulted to engage hundreds of children [1, 2]. The activity has been detailed within a paper and organized in a practical Paper Volcano Laboratory toolkit (PVLtoolkit) enriched with pedagogical elements. The PVLtoolkit has been tested in the last four years, during six INGV open days, three pre-school centers in Italy and three in New Zealand [3]. The activity results in a highly engaging experience for children beyond the Western cultural background such as Italy and New Zealand, which live in volcanically active countries. The project aims to enhance the educational opportunities and experiences of pre-school children and school-aged children in Africa through connecting them with an understanding of volcanoes and as well as their cultural significance. In addition, the project aims to connect educators with scientific and geological experts to craft rich learning opportunities.

A substantial proportion of Italian students (60/%)- are unaware of the connection between what they learn at school and their work opportunities. This proportion would most likely increase if data were collected today, given the generation of a broad range of new jobs that have arisen due to advancements in technology. This gap between students’ understanding of what they learn at school and its application to the broader world – the society, the economy and the political sphere – suggests there needs to be a rethinking of how teaching and learning at school is conceived and positioned. To help students to approach ongoing social and economic transformations, the Italian Educational Ministry (MIUR) has endorsed a school–work interchange program which, aligned with the principle of open schools, aims to provide students with work experience. It is within the scope of this initiative that we have tested high school students with Remote Sensing (RS) from space projects. The experience-based approach aimed to verify students’ openness to the use of satellite data as a means to learn new interdisciplinary skills, to familiarize themselves with methodological knowledge, and finally, to inspire them when choosing a university or areas of future work. We engaged three cohorts, from 2017, 2018 and 2019 respectively, for a total of 40 hours each year, including contact and non-contact time. The framework of each project was the same for the three cohorts and focused on the observation of Earth from space with a specific focus on wildfires. However, the initiative went beyond this, with diverse activities and tasks being assigned. This paper reports the pedagogical methods utilized with the three cohorts and how these methods were transformed and adapted in order to improve and enhance the learning outcomes. It also explores the outcomes for the students, teachers and family members, with respect to their learning and general appreciation

This article presents the epistemological complexity inherent in the roll out of an international project on Disaster and Risk Reduction, and consequently about science education in the Indigenous context of Turkana County in Kenya. After an introduction that explains the current state of Disaster and Risk Reduction, the paper focuses on the ‘Paper Volcanoes Laboratory’ program and toolkit for children and teachers, which aims to spread awareness about natural hazards among children. The paper argues that the geographical, social and educational context where the project is carried out is critical to consider, and decolonial studies provide a conceptual and theoretical framework for this project. This allows to recognize reproduction of infantilization of Indigenous people and children through Western knowledge and science if implemented without consideration for local contexts, and demonstrates how Western educational projects have been a tool of discrimination and colonization. However, at the same time, it opens up the possibility for a dialogue and an encounter between the different epistemologies present in a project that was conceptualized within the Western context, but is to be carried out in Turkana County in Kenya.