The NEUROCLIMA project was proud to be featured at the 2025 SmartEdTech Summer School, held in Nice, France, where we delivered a hands-on workshop exploring strategic approaches to climate education and engagement.
The session, titled “Designing Climate Literacy Initiatives with the NEUROCLIMA Learner Engagement Canvas,” brought together experienced instructional designers, educators, and researchers to tackle the pressing question: how can we design climate learning experiences that move beyond awareness and into meaningful, measurable action?
Climate Education in Context
As communities across Europe face the growing effects of climate change, from heatwaves to flooding, the need for public engagement and climate adaptation literacy is more urgent than ever. Yet, traditional learning design approaches often fall short in addressing the complex, systemic, and behavioral nature of climate adaptation. The NEUROCLIMA project responds to this gap by developing tools that help organizations strategically frame and design learning experiences that are learner-centered, context-specific, and systems-aware.
A Strategic Tool for Complex Challenges
At the heart of the workshop held at Nice was the NEUROCLIMA Learner Engagement Canvas, a design thinking tool developed within Work Package 3 (Task 3.4) of the project. Participants used the canvas to simulate the planning of climate literacy initiatives across various organizational types (e.g., NGOs, public bodies, education tech start-ups).
The canvas guides teams to consider:
- The specific adaptation challenge they aim to address
- The target audience’s needs, behaviors, and learning gaps.
- Organizational goals, content resources, and constraints.
- Strategic leverage points and expected impact.
Rather than jumping into content or tools, participants were encouraged to slow down and think strategically, using the canvas to structure a clear, actionable foundation for future learning initiatives.
Insights and Reflections
The session concluded with a structured affordance mapping activity, where participants reflected on what the canvas enabled, constrained, and revealed in their design process. Many noted its value in:
- Supporting multi-stakeholder alignment and collaboration.
- Clarifying the connection between learning goals and systemic change.
- Making invisible design assumptions visible
Feedback from participants will directly inform ongoing refinement of the canvas and its supporting materials, ensuring it remains relevant and usable across diverse educational and civic contexts.
The NEUROCLIMA project continues to explore how strategic design and participatory tools can support climate resilience through public education, participatory learning, and behavior change.
