Project Objectives

Identify and set-up a network of public and private bodies charged with caretaking of air, sea and land in the vicinity of Dublin.

Design a social media ESD-focused platform that can be used by schools to model “What-if: Disaster scenarios” within the thematic area of environmental sustainability.

Launch a schools competition within the theme of ‘What-if: Disaster Mitigation”, with a view to engaging school children in generating solutions to environmental disasters.

Host face-to-face and/ or virtual public forums to support communication between ‘caretakers’ of both the built environment and the natural environment, and post-primary school children, with a focus on generating discourse on how to mitigate threats to our natural resources that may travel through air, sea and land and with a view to enhancing the level of engagement of school children in decision-making on key environmental and disaster mitigation plans in the greater Dublin region.

Description & Partner Role:

This project will bring caretakers together with post-primary school children to discuss three ‘what-if’ scenarios:

What if there is a sea-level rise of two metres?

What if there is a serious chemical spill in the Liffey river basin?

What if the avian flu pandemic is transmitted within the Dublin metropolitan region?

Initially, with the support of social media and Web 2.0 technologies, post-primary pupils will examine and propose solutions to mitigate these “what-if” Sustainability scenarios as part of a schools competition within the greater Dublin region. Participating pupils in Educate Together schools, and in the five UNESCO ASPnet schools in the Dublin region, will then be invited to discuss with those responsible for mitigating disaster (caretakers), the potential impacts or threats to land, sea, air and society, and proposed disaster plans within a public forum. The idea from an ESD perspective is to raise awareness among school-children of the interconnectedness of natural, social and built environments and to increase the voice of school children in the development of plans or procedures that mitigate threats and the impact of worst-case scenarios. Certificates of participation, and awards, will be developed for pupils who participate in Project 2. The output from Sustainability discussions within the Public Forum will be released as a sequence of short-video clips or pod-casts on a You-tube channel. Research publications detailing the process of designing and developing the “What-if: Disaster Mitigation” ESD competition and public forums, will be disseminated nationally and internationally.