The CNL project aims to provide teachers, school leaders, educators, and researchers in teacher education, further education, and advanced training with teaching/learning materials that promote cultural sustainability. The CNL concept aims to define Anthropocene competence, enabling us to face the uncertainties of climate change in the 'human age' based on facts and solutions. It creatively combines STEM knowledge with cultural education and its creative potential.
The CNL project consolidates the expertise of the 9 European project partners to formulate cultural sustainability as an inclusive educational concept for societal transformation in line with SDG 4 (Quality Education): the "CultureNature Literacy" (CNL) concept. Next-Practice examples and text-image narrations on the human-nature relationship are developed for use in cross-curricular teaching and blended learning. Cultural practices are crucial for successful science communication in the Anthropocene. The CNL project creates a manual as a guide, designs, tests, and evaluates Next-Practice examples. The CNL platform makes them digitally accessible.
Through collaborative efforts of the project partners, the following results are achieved: The CNL manual (1) establishes CultureNature Literacy (CNL) as Anthropocene competence in theory and practice. Numerous examples illustrate this innovative educational concept, which places cultural sustainability at the forefront. The CNL Handbook is a guide for designing Next-Practice examples (2) and text-image narrations (4) on the human-nature relationship, developed for use in cross-curricular teaching and blended learning. The CNL Handbook (1) is also a guide for school leaders to implement the CNL concept for cultural sustainability in school development processes. The CNL-MOOC (3) can be used for self-study and/or integrated into teaching/learning processes.
(1) The CNL manual (Part 1) introduces the CNL concept as an inclusive educational concept for societal transformation in line with SDG 4. It provides curriculum recommendations that enable the implementation of the CNL concept in European education processes for sustainable development, considering inclusion and digitalization. It serves as a guide for making Anthropocene competence accessible to everyone. The CNL Handbook shows how technical-scientific understanding of environmental crises and climate change can be culturally conveyed. Thus, it brings together environmental humanities and cultural education as essential elements of contemporary university and teacher education.
The CNL manual for School principals (Part 2) prepares Anthropocene competence for the first time as a central theme for school development. It aims to support school leaders in promoting Anthropocene competence within the framework of school development. It combines the expertise of the project partners in the fields of leadership, school management, school autonomy, inclusion, digitalization, sustainability, learning organization, and school law. The CNL Handbook subsequently serves as a compendium and keybook in further education events for all participating project partners. Therefore, it is a central medium for transfer into school practice.
(2) The CNL platform is established. Exemplary teaching/learning materials are created as Next-Practice examples to illustrate the CNL concept. They cover the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals thematically and in content. They can be used cross-curricularly in blended learning and include a selection of inclusively, differentiated, and multilingual designed learning scenarios. Examples for primary education, secondary education, and teacher education are provided. They are open access and available for free download on the CNL platform. They can be integrated (in selection) into the MOOC (3). They enable emphasis on a school project and can thus be used by school leaders for school development.
An integrated toolkit for creating differentiated teaching/learning materials specific to themes and target groups offers the target audiences the opportunity to participate in adapting or further developing teaching-learning materials individually and/or collaboratively using this toolbox. In the test phase, the qualitative-empirical accompanying research evaluated the usability of the CNL platform and the Next-Practice examples.
(3) A diversity-sensitive MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) aims to make sensitization for diversity and inclusive implementation options in a world of cultural diversity tangible and to promote Anthropocene competence for all, especially for teachers who work professionally with people in the role of learners with different starting points and learning levels. A key goal for the target audiences is to strengthen future viability and willingness to take joint responsibility for all stakeholders in the education system through scientifically founded cultural optimism. To meet the needs of these target groups, the CNL project partners, with their expertise in education, ecological sustainability, digitalization, inclusion, and special education, are developing an innovative diversity-sensitive CNL MOOC on the topic "Living and Learning CultureNatures Sustainably Together".
(4) Exemplary CNL text-image narrations in intermedial formats (e.g., Anthropocene fairy tales, graphic novels, science comics, poetry clips, picture books, photo essays, theater films) are created. They are based on selected narratives of the Anthropocene, with thematic reference to the 17 SDGs. The text-image narrations prove to be powerful storytelling for transformative educational processes. They help make complex material cycles and relationships in the human-nature relationship in the Anthropocene visible and understandable and are innovative media for science communication. They show how technical-scientific understanding of environmental crises and climate change can be culturally conveyed: in images and narratives. They stimulate imagination and can convey respect and appreciation for the diversity and beauty of all life on planet Earth. They can sensitize for empathy, solidarity, and shared responsibility in dealing with each other and with the environment as a "Unswelt".
A picture book and a video clip, each with interactive extensions, are intended to demonstrate how narratives and images give a voice to non-human life (such as animals, plants, stones, earth, rivers) to perceive the effects of the climate crisis and the interaction of humans, nature, and technology from a changed perspective. They thus illustrate the CNL concept as an inclusive educational concept for cultural sustainability, which for the first time brings together environmental humanities and cultural education as necessary elements of contemporary teacher education. The text-image narrations exemplify the possibilities of cultural education to make Anthropocene competence accessible to everyone. Through intermedial formats, they contribute to the culture of digitalization. In selection, they consider aspects of inclusion, diversity, and multilingualism.