<< Background >>The VITAL project is motivated by the EU's Green Deal Action Plan and the exploitation of two Erasmus+ priorities – the fight against climate change combined with digital transformation in this case in the adult education sector. Various studies, statistics and surveys show that the rate of natural resource extraction is rapidly growing and our planet and the home of mankind can come to exhaustion of its finite resources. In a nutshell, the behaviour and lifestyle of EU Citizens in terms of consumption and use of products and services needs to be influenced so that we all contribute daily actions that are more sustainable and aligned with best practices leading to carbon neutrality. Conscious of this need, European Member States have defined their National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) strategies with clear targets and milestones. For these targets to be achieved, all those concerned whether at their home or place of work need to take appropriate daily actions. These targets are also putting pressure on economic operators in different EU Member States to ensure they take the necessary actions to comply. Although best practices such as recycling, re-use, reduction and a shift toward Circular Economy principles are practised by some adults, to effectively reach the necessary NECP targets, much more effort is required. Thus more structured knowledge, practical examples and a deeper understanding of how to apply such principles and concepts leading to low carbon activities in everyday life in education, businesses and leisure are mostly missing.Thus, to contribute towards fighting climate change and reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 (EU Green Deal), the VITAL project aims to help EU adult learners understand better the basic scientific principles giving rise to climate change, so that better informed daily actions and decisions can be taken. At the same time, adults are busy individuals who do not always have the time to attend courses to acquire knowledge on for instance ‘low carbon’ best practices. Compounded with this fact, adult trainers need a set of training resources that can help them transfer knowledge to adult learners in an efficient and engaging way yet customised to learner needs. One way of how this can be overcome is to exploit the emerging digital technologies of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies to better engage learners. However, many EU adult trainers are still not familiar with these technologies and thus the VITAL project aims to address this need too by providing training on AR/VR to relevant target groups (adult trainers, teachers and educators, adult training providing organisations, SME managers) so that they can reach out more effectively to the EU adult population to help Europe gradually shift towards more climate-neutral practices.<< Objectives >>The main objectives of the VITAL project are:• Using an activity-based learning methodology to stimulate critical thinking and help adults understand in simpler terms and with examples, what the EU Green Deal is all about. • To help adult trainers create relevant activity-based learning activities which could be based on different areas applicable to the EU Green Deal (farm to fork, sustainable industry, building and renovating, eliminating pollution and single-use items, etc.) • To support a basic understanding of the main scientific principles and other phenomena involved e. g., in the greenhouse effect, carbon/material footprint, heat losses etc. through AR/VR based case studies. • Making use of AR and VR to develop content-rich training material that helps adults understand better and how they can foster and adopt resource-efficient practices both at home and at their place of work (thus, work with digital transformation and the increase of digital literacy skills and digital content creation at the same time).• Promote work-based learning and digital tools to allow direct implementation of acquired knowledge.<< Implementation >>As detailed in the VITAL proposal, to reach the set objectives, the project will implement many activities summarized below:a) It will pool the multi-disciplinary expertise of the members of the partnership by organising regular virtual meetings (ZOOM/SKYPE) and also 4 transnational F2F project meetings. These meetings will collectively help decision making regarding the design, implementation and review of the set project results with respects to quality and knowledge transfer effectiveness.b) It will take several actions such as consulting associate partners, adult training stakeholders etc. that will help shape the development of the individual project results.c) A training session in the form of an LTTA will be held to help project partner staff learn how to develop AR and VR content.d) Partners will collectively work through a division of tasks, to use their expertise to develop the project’s three (3) main results.e) Partners will set up various dissemination channels in the form of a project webpage, digital newsletters, social media channels and even organise multiplier events in their country to spread awareness of both the VITAL project and more important the openly available project results, in particular the VITA Open Educational Toolkit.f) Internal peer-reviewing of project results to ensure the necessary quality is maintained.g) External reviewing of project results mainly through demos and feedback obtained through multiplier events.h) Project management activities such as setting up internal reporting templates to report on the status of project deliverables, funding etc. to ensure timely corrective action can be taken where necessary. These will be enshrined in bilateral agreements to be endorsed between the partners and the coordinator.<< Results >>The VITAL project objectives create the necessary environment for the target groups to develop new competencies and new knowledge in the field of the project. The outputs and outcomes developed during the project lifetime are targeted to the TGs. Partner organizations will use their human resources, expertise, experience and own networks around Europe to complete them. The key project results are:• R1: Modular Training Resources To Foster Climate Neutral Practices; • R2: The VITAL Modular Open Educational Toolkit;• R3: VITAL Trainer’s Guide.Each of the outcomes has several parts and activities included. R1 modular training resources result will consist of a set of training resources aimed at fostering climate-neutral practices with European adult training and environmental education like a green-oriented curriculum, a set of 6 AR/VR case studies that promote climate-neutral practices, lecturing content in audiovisual format for 3 modules with submodules in all partner official languages and a set of self-assessment quiz questions.R2 Open Educational Toolkit result consists of the educational toolkit that will be developed for the VITAL project containing digital all resources integrated together for easy access by the adult trainers and other target group members. As an open, modular educational toolkit, its format will be a web portal, organised modularly. The toolkit will be designed considering adult trainer’s needs for practical and integrative training tools, user-friendliness but also in a modular form to mix and match resources according to respective training/level of training provided by them to their end-users. An initial technical architecture based on the pre-application research conducted by the partners, would be to allow for different access points based on the target group member using it, contain digital tools and supportive training methodologies such as the activity-based training methodology with 7 activity examples ready to be used by trainers on fostering climate-neutral practices.R3 result will be a trainer's guide through which adult trainers can use, on how the digital resources developed through the VITAL project, and available on the VITAL toolkit, can be used for training target group participants. The guide will contain information on the use of AR/VR cases as training material, the open educational resources s developed as part of the curriculum to create own training programmes, guidelines on the creation of some own digital material using AR/VR, activity-based learning methodology, and others, and how VITAL resources can be used in different educational settings and contexts. The final guide will also be available as an e-book available from the R2 Toolkit.

"People are nowadays becoming increasingly aware of the positive influence of Nature on their health. Nature, among others, fulfills their physical needs by providing unique sensory experiences. The constant desire to return to Nature may be associated with ""innate feelings that people are part of all living things on Earth"" (so-called Biophilia Theory). But also its mystery, depth, beauty, fragility and strength are what attract us at these days of rapidly changing Environment. We are more and more surrounded by inanimate things with monotonous, unchanging and ever-repeating rhythm and way of life that reduces our attention and flexibility.Some human senses may suffer from a lack of contact with nature. Most of the technologies work primarily with sight and hearing, but we also have other senses that weaken by less frequent use. Played down senses, such as smell and taste, are also important for our wellbeing. So called ""3D perception"" of the surrounding environment flattens to ""two-dimensional reality"". Obesity, decreased mobility and overall fitness are successive consequences. Contribution of Nature and Garden Therapy consists of strengthening the physical and mental health, improving relaxation and wellbeing and also shortens hospital stay and leads to reducing of the medicament consumption. Inalienable is also the profit of increasing social integration and intercultural understanding, which are the most current needs of changing Europe. Nature does not know boundaries and can thus become a medium of communication of different social groups regardless of their religion and political view. The garden is an ideal space for intergenerational living and sharing experience. We live in a world where technology and mobility simplifies everyday life, but our contact with natural environment is becoming scarcer. The garden is a safe space for improvement in this situation, which lies right outside our door. It can help improve our motor skills, social skills, increase creativity and enables spontaneous elimination of aggression.Garden Therapy is defined as treatment and relaxation through contact with nature. The nature is represented by garden and as therapeutic remedy are used plants and work in garden. Garden Therapy has preventive effect on health, in social sphere and on relapses. The target group of this project is wide range of people with disadvantages, such as people with health disadvantages (different handicaps or developmental disorders), people after injuries, surgeries or people with mental illnesses. The other target group is defined by people with social disadvantages, such as people in difficult social and economical life situation (migrants, war veterans and refugees, minorities, children from families that fail to fulfil some of its functions, abused people, addicted people, inmates, people in hospices, retirement or nursing homes, single parents and people seeking re-integration or relational competencies, etc.). Each of us is a potential client in current hasty time.In this project we are focused on sharing experiences and best practices when working with target groups. Many of them are on the edge of social interest. They are currently perceived as an economic burden on the social system. Social and Therapeutic Gardening helps build mutual confidence, to acquire knowledge and enthusiasm. It improves employability of the target groups and support their entrepreneurship. The Social and Therapeutic Gardening also helps them to develop their communication, social and entrepreneurial skills. The project partners will become regional coordinators, which will be gradually followed by other organizations from this field and the idea of nature based therapies will eventually spread to the whole Europe.During the project we want to connect organizations dealing with Garden Therapy and Nature based therapies in various European countries. Activities within the project enables mutual exchange of cultural, work and learning experience. Each partner country has a different approach to working with target groups. Therefore it is very useful to be familiar with these different approaches on the spot and show each other what, where and how it works, or what problems they face elsewhere.Seven five-day educational activities for representatives of each partner will be held during project. Each educational activity is hosted by different partner. There are two educational activities per a year; each activity is designed for 2-4 representatives of each partner. The output of the project is summary of experience, creation of a network of potential educators and finding educational needs similar in all countries. In following project we find areas to supplement education common for all EU member states and we set further education in Garden Therapy that is specific for each target group."

Water is life. It is a precondition for human, animal, and plant life as well as an indispensable resource for the economy and fundamental in climate regulation.PoVE Water Scale-up is a joint initiative of 8 VET schools, 7 Water industry professionals, 4 academic partners and 3 support partners in Europe (NL,DE,MT,CZ,LV,EE,BE) and beyond (SA) to educate our VET students to become agile, digitally skilled and sustainable oriented water sector professionals that our future desperately needs.The aim of the project is to integrate Vocational Excellence in the Water sector, thus ensuring high quality skills and competences that lead to quality jobs and careers, meeting the needs of an innovative, inclusive and sustainable economy.Objectives and activities are:• Expand the holistic approach to Vocational Excellence in the EU Water sector by securing a central role of VET in the regional Innovation Ecosystems and further developing strong and enduring relationships between VET, research & the water industry.• To expand PoVE Water geographically in a sustainable way (environmentally and economically) in line with the EU Green deal by setting up and interlinking CoVE Water networks that operate on interregional level.• Drive innovation in water related VET on a regional and EU level by developing contemporary (Digital, VR) learning materials.• Ensure that current and future water sector professionals have the key skills & competences demanded by developing blended training programmes.• Increasing student’s, teacher’s and professional’s competence for international mobilities by organising international mobilities as common practise in Water related VET.• Building EU and global recognition for PoVE Water as a worldwide point of reference for VET in the water sector.• Future proof the workforce for the Water sector and avoid a brain- & skillsdrain by securing current and increasing future students in water related studies.