<< Background >>Nature-Based Solutions and Innovative S.T.R.E.A.M.S Education (NBS-STREAMS Ed.) will contribute directly to the EU’s vision of enabling and fostering the development and implementation of a multidisciplinary European competence framework within the context of lifelong learning for the development and assessment of knowledge, skills, and attitudes of citizens and in particular young people on climate change and sustainable development through NBS and as outlined in the EU Council Recommendation on Key Competences for lifelong learning. It is noticeable from an initial review of the national and EU regional activities in all partner countries, that attempts are being made to address Climate Change as a stated policy priority. Indeed in the case of Iceland, one of two countries globally to declare a ‘Climate Crisis’ in law; ‘The Government of Iceland is taking the lead in addressing this challenge and in ensuring that there is a sustained and strategic approach to incremental and permanent decarbonization. It is crucial that this approach, which also includes climate change mitigation and adaptation, involves everyone including government, individuals and wider society ’. This commitment is built upon and reflected by recent publications and policy documents from the Council of Europe outlining its findings and recommendations for ‘The 2050 climate neutrality goal’ and its invitation to the EU Commission to assess how all EU, economic sectors can best contribute to the 2030 target and to make the necessary proposals, accompanied by an in-depth examination of the environmental, economic and social impacts at the member state level. Finally, the European Commission established the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) in 2000 to help identify the most environmentally and cost-effective policies and measures that can be taken at the European level to cut greenhouse gas emissions and position itself and its member States, The EU, as the global leader in innovating with nature to achieve more sustainable and resilient societies. Following on from the research already undertaken by the EU institutions and our consortium members, we see the NBS-STREAMS Ed., approach through our chosen title; ‘Nature-Based Solutions and Innovative S.T.R.E.A.M.S Education – Authentic Pathways to Meaningful Citizenship, Resilience, and Sustainability in 21 Century Teaching and Learning, as offering a more holistic, inclusive and meaningfully ‘Green and Blue - Digital and Green’ approach to EU planning that will foster the development and implementation of a multidisciplinary European competence framework within the context of lifelong learning for the development and assessment of knowledge, skills, and attitudes of citizens and in particular young people on climate change and sustainable development. Also, Iceland is the world’s largest green energy producer per capita and the largest electricity producer per capita, with approximately 55.000 kWh per person per year. Renewable energy provides almost 100% of the electricity production, with about 73% coming from hydropower and 27% from geothermal power. Iceland’s unique geology allows the country to produce renewable energy relatively cheaply, from a variety of sources. The main use of geothermal energy is for space heating with the heat being distributed to buildings through extensive district-heating systems. About 90% of all houses in Iceland are heated with geothermal energy.<< Objectives >>The core idea of our ‘Nature-Based Solutions and Innovative S.T.R.E.A.M.S Education, is to directly involve the citizens and communities of our Pan-EU consortium in contributing to climate action and protecting the environment, thereby encouraging them to change their personal behaviour and their mindsets, reducing their carbon and environmental footprint and taking action at an individual and collective level, through the three authentic pathways we have chosen in our application proposal and title;●Meaningful Citizenship (EU President Von der Leyen, 2019), ●Resilience ( EU Commission 2013) and ●Sustainability (EU Green Deal) ( EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030) These three pathways will we believe, lead to a more sustainable lifestyle and relationship to the environment and result in positive changes in citizens’ and consumers’ behaviours towards more sustainable patterns that will directly result from our consortium’s focus on addressing the following six challenges. Enabling citizens to act on climate change for sustainable development through education;●education, ●awareness-raising, ●citizen science, ●observation and monitoring of environmental impacts, ●civic engagement and ●social innovation.As previously stated, in order to assiduously, thoroughly and exhaustively address this Erasmus+ Call, our consortium has chosen the following title; ‘Nature-Based Solutions and Innovative S.T.R.E.A.M.S Education – Authentic Pathways to Meaningful Citizenship, Resilience and Sustainability in 21 Century Teaching and Learning. Through the medium of NBS-STREAMS education our six objectives are ;1. to enable and foster the development and implementation of a multidisciplinary European competence framework within the context of lifelong learning that will serve as a reference tool for the EU Member States, the public and private sector, stakeholders, and NGOs to help citizens to become engaged actors in the green transformation of society; 2. to observe, monitor and assess the awareness, knowledge, skills and attitudes of citizens and in particular young people on climate change, sustainable development and environmental protection; 3.to design educational materials and MOOCs, online and offline to explain complex systems, develop and implement specific educational programmes, social innovation programmes, mentoring programmes, school curricula, CPD training, networking activities and exchanges of evolving best practices in the area of citizen science, climate change and NBS-STREAMS education for sustainable development 4.to enhanced engagement of the wider community, including with the use of ‘Green and Blue’ digital media, and observing and monitoring environmental impacts on the oceans and to make the behavioural changes needed for a successful transition to a Green infrastructure in the EU by undertaking consultations, polls, testing and implementation of this framework in schools, universities, vocational and technical training institutions, municipalities, public authorities in cooperation with the NGOs, private sector, teachers, trainers, students, pupils, parents aligned with our consortium, (All Partners of the consortium). 5.to involve the large participation of pupils and students6.to undertake the broad testing, dissemination and use of the European competence framework at concrete demonstration sites in our eight EU countries and in innovative activities<< Implementation >>Each and every one of the consortium members has extensive knowledge of and experience in engaging with these six identified areas as is clear in their organizations’ descriptions in Part B Sections 4-5. Moreover, their defined and chosen ‘Roles within the NBS-STREAMS consortium’, as again defined in Part B Sections 4-5 of our application clearly describe their expertise in strengthening environmental awareness of the young generation through education (formal, non-formal, vocational, technical, NGO, civic and lifelong learning) and other forms of youth engagement. Our project application fully acknowledges and embraces the reality that pupils and students have the potential to become ambassadors for climate action, sustainable development and environmental protection by sharing their knowledge, experience and through engagement with their families, local communities, municipalities, public and private decision-makers, as well as through communication and the use of social media. To this end, a central and crucial aspect of our Nature-Based Solutions and Innovative S.T.R.E.A.M.S Education Eraasmus application and all associated initiatives and pathways/actions (work package 4), is the co-design, formation, promotion, mentoring and inclusion of local and consortium-wide NBS Student Ambassador Programmes( SAPs) to directly involve and include all citizens and communities of our Pan-EU consortium and to engage with pupils, parents and their wider communities on the changes needed for a successful transition to a green economy. Our SAPs will play a central role in our project and in addressing the six defined and expected impacts of HErasmus+. our consortium has ensured ( taking the national and EU health advice and restrictions of Covid-19 fully into account) clustering activities ( virtual and F2F) through regular exchanges between all consortium members (e.g. meetings, peer-learning and peer-counseling activities, dedicated project ‘Intelligent tutor and Video’ Apps development from Portugal and Turkey (partners), with the synchronous, in-time transmission of a communication, research, findings, initiatives, actions, data, etc.) in order to track the metrics generated through our actions, initiatives and work packages, etc., and share the NBS-STREAMS educational outcomes on the competence framework and the evolving best practices and results of the different demonstration sites. To this end, our proposal has also included VML technology.Use of NBS, self-evaluation tools and dialogue with the consortium members and SAPs in schools as a starting point to identify their current situation regarding Climate Change, Climate Action and Sustainability. This will facilitate the identification of consortium member organisations and communities who are doing well (and thus can mentor) as well as helping to identify schools and organisations who based on their own self-evaluation could use the support affording, via participation in the mentoring process. Use of self-evaluation tools provides an appropriate trigger for professional reflection leading to action.<< Results >>The project call has identified six challenges and the following section addresses these challenges.1.education (NBS STREAMS education), This aspect of the project will be met by seeking to pair or cluster schools, universities, training institutions, municipalities, public authorities in cooperation with the private sector, teachers, trainers, students, pupils, parents (within each country) and to catalyze ‘Green and Blue communities of practice’ mentoring (peer-learning, peer-mentoring, peer-counseling, peer-exemplar activities) and related practices (such as design and development of NBS-STREAMS education civic and curriculum initiatives) to support communication and collaboration between all consortium members. With the support of their organizations’, lead teams will assume roles as mentors and mentees but the emphasis is on the whole-school, whole-organization, whole-community NBS dimension to the activities. 2.awareness raising, Awareness-raising is a process that seeks to inform and educate people about a topic or issue with the intention of influencing their attitudes, behaviours, and beliefs towards the achievement of a defined purpose or goal. The project will mainstream the central Call Erasmus+ by highlighting and raising awareness of the active role of all EU citizens and the essential nature of their direct involvement in Climate Action initiatives to meaningfully and holistically address climate change and sustainability and other human actions harming the environment on land, air and sea. 3.citizen science (to increase understanding of scientific processes and scientific literacy), Citizen science is the practice of public participation and collaboration in scientific research to increase scientific knowledge. Through citizen science, our consortium via their national and associate bodies and SAPs, will share and contribute through a robust scientific methodology, to data monitoring and collection programs as innovatively designed in our ‘Digital Green, VML App and our VUB, AI Intelligent tutoring systems’ in work packages 5 and 6. 4.observation and monitoring of environmental impacts, Environmental monitoring can be described as a program of recurring, systematic studies that reveal the state of the environment. Our consortium has secured unique expertise to undertake the mammoth task of ‘Observation and monitoring of environmental impacts’ in work packages 3 with our partners from Portugal and IUC.5.civic engagement Civic engagement or active citizenship involves ‘working to make a difference in the civic life of one's community and developing the combination of knowledge, skills, values, and motivation to make that difference ’. Our project fully acknowledges and incorporates in all of our work packages, in particular, WPs 1,2, 3 & 5 the critical, pivotal, and significant position and importance of civic engagement and the meaningful involvement of EU citizens and communities in contributing to climate action and protecting the environment, 6.social innovation.Social innovation is ‘the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress. Social innovation is not the prerogative or privilege of any organizational form or legal structure ’. Social innovation is also perceived as ‘is the practice of using creativity to develop solutions which improve the well-being of people and society.To succeed in all of these objectives we have work packages;1Project management and coordination2Development of EU Competences Framework Data collection/management - Evidence3CPD / CPAs Mentoring Activities Development Plan under STREAMS4Students Ambassador Programmes (SAPs) - Local Green Councils - Municipalities and Civic Engagement5Development of the NBS-STREAMS VML/AI App for Metrics and Data6Design of an Intelligent Tutor Systems for STREAMS Education7Dissemination, Exploitation