The IAC has been participating in the "Planet Change" project [this is how we call it for short] since October 2022. The project, financed by the European Commission within the framework of the Erasmus + program, has the mission of transferring "VET" students -Vocational and Educational Training- which in Spain would be high school and FP, aged between 16 and 18) the importance of space sciences and technologies in the sustainability of the Planet, specifically aims to "improve the curriculum educational program on sustainable development for students aged 16+, using space science as a context and enhancing awareness about the variety of career paths in the field of space".
To fulfill this mission:
1) an educational framework and training material will be developed,
2) an online platform will be generated with teaching content aimed at providing teachers with tools for the classroom: in essence it is about providing resources to explain how Space is key to, for example, managing climate problems, generating clean energy, controlling agriculture, fires, spills, etc.
3) activities will be implemented in educational centers and
4) in the process, training and collaborative ecosystems will be created to implement and sustain the project beyond the execution period of "Planet Change" (the project lasts three years).
The IAC partners in this project are AndoyaSpace Center (Norway), Virtual Campus (Portugal), Leidse InstrumentmakersSchool (Holland), CRES (Italy) and NEMO Science Museum (Holland, coordinator).