VITAL - A Modular VR & AR Based Educational Toolkit to Help EU Adults Foster Climate Neutral Practices

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 need to be influenced so that we all contribute daily actions that are more sustainable and aligned with best practices leading to carbon neutrality. In the contribution, we would like to inform about a course and materials developed within our Erasmus+ project that could serve various target users (adult trainers, schools, NGOs, municipal authorities, etc.) to get information about the principles and provide a set of hands-on activities enriched with AR technology features.


Introduction
The VITAL project is motivated by the EU's Green Deal Action Plan [1] and the exploitation of two Erasmus+ priorities -the fight against climate change combined with digital transformation in the adult education sector.The behaviour and lifestyle of EU Citizens in terms of consumption and use of products and services need to be influenced so that we all contribute daily actions that are more sustainable and aligned with best practices leading to carbon neutrality.European member states have defined their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) strategies with clear targets and milestones [2].For these targets to be achieved, all those concerned whether at their home or place of work need to take appropriate daily actions.
Although best practices such as recycling, reuse, 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.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.
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 customized to learner needs.
One way 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.The VITAL project aims to address this need by providing training on AR 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.Let us note that the problems connected with the climate change and our response to them have many interesting physics aspects and thus can be discussed partly within the physics classes (energetics, the physics processes in the atmosphere, etc.); see e.g.contributions in special September issues of the American Journal of Physics [3] or The Physics Teacher [4].
As the project is planned to be completed in August 2024, most of the project resources are currently in development.At the time of the MPTL'26 conference, the presentations with the learning content and the case studies with AR features were completed.In the following, we would like to introduce them and briefly draw the attention of the community to the project results.They are gradually published and available via the project website [5].

Objectives
Let us summarize the main objectives of the VITAL project: • 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 based case studies.• Making use of AR to develop content-rich training material that helps adults understand better how they can foster and adopt resource-efficient practices both at home and 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.The partners cooperating with the project bring their various backgrounds and experiences on specific skills and competencies included in the project, as the partnership is connecting together a Czech public university, a Romanian technical university, a Greek social enterprise, a Turkish municipal authority, a Maltese technical consulting bureau, a Czech school facility for environmental education and an Andalusian organisation specialising in training and innovation in digital skills at an international level.

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 target group members and with their regular feedback.Partner organizations employ their human resources, expertise, experience and own networks around Europe to complete them.The key planned project results are: • Modular Training Resources To Foster Climate Neutral Practices; • The VITAL Modular Open Educational Toolkit; • VITAL Trainer's Guide.Let us briefly describe them.

Modular Training Resources to Foster Climate Neutral Practices
This result will consist of a set of training resources aimed at fostering climate neutral practices with European adult training stakeholders.These resources will consist of: • A green-oriented curriculum and related educational strategies that will aim at fostering green, sustainable and climate-responsible mindsets and promote respective principles in European adults.All the modules are complemented with a set of self-assessment quiz questions that adult learners can use.
The target group of this result is i.e. the adult trainers, teachers and educators who will be able to mix and match these resources to address the specific needs of their learners.The innovative aspect of this result is a set of original resources all explicitly aimed at addressing the needs of adult trainers to help them reach out to European adult learners.The training resources try to be innovative as besides aimed at helping trainers reach out to European adults to show them how goals within the European Green Deal can be achieved practically, they will make use of augmented reality too.It is anticipated that 200 trainers across the partner countries will directly make use of the VITAL resources developed within the first 18 months after the project finishes, with these reaching out to 300 learners each by 2025, in essence meaning that 60,000 European adult learners could be made knowledgeable on how they can foster climate neutral practices.

The VITAL Modular Open Educational Toolkit
This result consists of the educational toolkit that is currently developed for the VITAL project containing digital resources and integrated for easy access by adult trainers and other target group members.As an open, modular educational toolkit, its format will be a web portal, organized modularly for easy, uniform access.The toolkit will be designed considering adult trainers' needs for practical and integrable training tools, and user-friendliness but also in a modular form to mix and match resources according to respective training or the level of training provided by them to their end-users.An initial technical architecture based on the pre-application survey conducted by the partners would 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 seven activity examples ready to be used by trainers on fostering climate-neutral practices.Moreover, the result will contain: • a web portal allowing for modular access;

• seven activity-based learning methodology training examples;
• all digital resources created by the partners contained and accessed easily (dissemination materials, case studies, etc.); • three learning path examples created by partners to aid adult trainers in designing training programmes, targeting end-users to foster climate-neutral practices, a template for a selfevaluation tool for adult trainers to determine individual needs related to training and fostering climate-neutral practices with their trainees one infographic depicting the overall VITAL aim and objectives and how it complies with relevant EU Strategies; • one future trend report on how adult education is expected to alter in the coming years; • one user manual on how the toolkit can be used in the form of a video; • materials translated by the partners into Czech, English, Greek, Romanian, Spanish and Turkish.
As EU Green initiatives are being currently updated, reviewed and new ones are taking form, adult trainers are overwhelmed with various types of information available in the form of EU Commission presentations, reviews, and updated news articles, which they are called to primarily, identify, then analyse and subsequently use to create training resources suitable for their trainees.A common access point for digital, modular educational resources is lacking and this is evident from VITAL's initial investigation conducted by the partners.Moreover, access to practical and hands-on examples, a dedicated training methodology such as the activity-based learning educational examples provided by VITAL, and a toolkit to act as a reference point for resources, will allow them to train themselves, acquire the necessary know-how on how to promote training which fosters climate-neutral practices in various end-users, but also mix and match resources to suit own training delivery and programme design.
This result targets primarily adult trainers, teachers and educators but also SMEs, educational providers, public and private authorities and any interested professional or individual wishing to use the digital resources to learn how to adapt techniques and methods to change their consuming behaviour.
The training resources will be innovative as besides aimed at helping trainers reach out to European adults to show them how goals within the European Green Deal and change their behaviour.It is expected that 50 adult trainers will test the results during the final half-year of the project.It is estimated that more than 600 professionals, adult educators/trainers and other target group members, will access the toolkit and its digital resources within the first 24 months after the project finishes, reaching out to 400 users each by 2025.

VITAL Trainer's Guide
This result, planned to be developed in 2024, will serve as a guide for teachers and adult trainers on how the digital resources developed through the VITAL project and available on the VITAL Toolkit can be used for their courses and needs.The guide will contain information on the use of AR cases as training material, the open educational resources developed as part of the curriculum to create own training programmes, guidelines on the creation of own digital material using AR, 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 result 3.2 Toolkit.It is expected that the guide will also contain the following information: • Short definitions of selected, related to the project, EU Green Strategies/Initiatives and their respective SWOT analysis in the context of adult education.• Information and guidelines on using VITAL as an educational tool to fight climate change.
• Skills and competencies needed by adult trainers to use VITAL as an educational tool.
• Main objectives and VITAL aim stated to serve as an introductory resource to motivate adult trainers to uptake VITAL results and resources.
The identified needs for the adult trainers are the following: be able to understand how VITAL is structured, how its resources can be used and how the project aims to contribute to fighting climate change, preparation and information on the Green transition, EU Green Deal and fostering climateneutral practices.Going through the guide will serve as an introduction and enticement to use VITAL understand own capabilities related to the VITAL topics and allow for a self-reflection for further training needs on the topics and how they can be covered.Quick understanding of EU's green strategies and initiatives and related SWOT analysis for an overview and relation to own knowledge, this result is targeting the primary target group, i.e. the adult trainers, teachers and educators but also SMEs, educational providers, public and private authorities and any interested professional or individual wishing to learn how to use the VITAL resources or to learn some details related to the EU's main Green Strategies and compare their knowledge level.The trainers' guide can also be used as a short introduction to the EU's main Green strategies and the green transition towards fostering climate-neutral practices.
The adult trainers and other interested users can compare their existing knowledge and information on the area and choose to proceed with VITAL training.We expect that approximately 50 adult trainers will download and go through the VITAL training guide as part of their participation and interaction with the project during the last months of the project.In addition, it is estimated that the guide could have a positive effect on adult trainers and motivate them to visit the VITAL toolkit to download educational resources (> 70 % of adult trainers).Moreover, the guide will have a direct impact on how adult trainers understand and learn about fostering climate-neutral practices and will be able to use VITAL resources in their own training programmes (> 80 %).

Connection to physics and science education
Although the project is oriented more generally to raise awareness about the topic of climate change and carbon neutrality, we believe it is also partly relevant to physics education and multimedia in science education (or STEM education).First, global and cultural awareness and sustainability education represent increasing trends in education generally.Similarly, VR and AR are becoming increasingly important within education systems (see, e.g.[6]).Though our AR elements are simple and not extremely difficult to create in contrast to the commercial ones, they help to develop digital skills and could inspire the creation of similar small applications in education.
Our materials provide links to relevant more detailed resources that can stimulate discussion of the topics relevant to physics education, like working with data and their interpretation (see e. g. https://factsonclimate.org).Physics is crucial for understanding the concepts like greenhouse effect and enhanced greenhouse effect related to human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), deforestation, and industrial processes increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.Within our materials, we also provide information related to the transformation of energetics and transport as economy branches with the most significant impact on greenhouse emissions.Thus, the provided materials can serve as supplement materials for physics lessons about heat transfer, radiation balance and mutual transformation of various kinds of energy.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Case-study Emissions in My Life (created by Lipka -a school facility for environmental education, Czech Republic).

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Case-study Protecting the Environment by Reducing Water Wastage (created by MACDAC Engineering Consultancy Bureau (MECB) Ltd, Malta).