Míriam Arenas Conejo, Conceição Colaço, Helena Ballart, Renata Pacheco, Clàudia Torrens-Flores, Desalegn Yayeh Ayal, Ulisses M. Azeiteiro, Henri-Count Evans, Inga Grinfelde, José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra, Jasenka Gajdoš Kljusurić, João Carlos Correia Leitão, Chunlan Li, Newton R. Matandirotya, Bethwel Mutai, Gustavo J. Nagy, Thierry Razanakoto, Jame Schaefer, Goran Trbic, Roberto Ariel Abeldaño Zuñiga, Sane Pashane Zuka, Charles Galdies, Adriana Consorte-McCrea, Francisco Platas, Mittul Vahanvati, Pedi Obani, Safwatun Nida, Lucas Gabriel Zanon, Mayara Régia Sousa de Melo, Alison Glover, Roman Vakulchuk
In the context of climate change, wildfires are among the most critical social, economic, and environmental challenges. Nevertheless, updated scientific knowledge, operational practices, and efforts regarding mitigation and preparedness are not easily accessible to the general public in Europe. To address this gap, two practitioner-based institutions—Pau Costa Foundation (Spain) as coordinators and the Leitrim County Council (Ireland)—and two universities—the School of Agriculture of the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and the Open University of Catalonia (Spain)—have developed an innovative educational project funded by the Erasmus+ program: The EduFire Toolkit. This toolkit offers a set of multilingual, interdisciplinary, and open-access resources designed for middle and high school teachers and students. Following Project-based Learning and community engagement approaches includes “challenges” to promote students’ active role in researching real and local issues related to climate change and wildfires. The activities are flexible and can be adapted to different contexts and needs, as documented in the diverse pilot tests conducted by the project teams. Additionally, environmental and disaster risk reduction educators can also adjust and apply these resources. This chapter presents the development process conducted by the consortium to create the EduFire Toolkit and highlights the results achieved thus far in its implementation and dissemination. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.
The Centre for Environmental and Marine Studies (CESAM) and Department of Biology, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal; Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Eswatini, Manzini, Kwaluseni Campus, Matsapha, South Africa; Institute of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Engineering, Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies, Jelgava, Latvia; Center for Sustainable Development (Greens), Universidade do Sul de Santa Catarina (Unisul), Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil; School of Urban and Regional Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China; Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Centre, Beitbridge, Zimbabwe; Kgotso Development Trust, Beitbridge, Zimbabwe; Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay; CERED, University of Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar; Marquette University, Milwaukee, United States; University of Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico; University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Land Economy, University of Malawi, The Polytechnic, Blantyre 3, Malawi; Institute of Earth Systems, University of Malta, Msida, Malta; Academy for Sustainable Futures, Canterbury Christ Church University, Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom; Casa de Cultura de la UAEMéx en Tlalpan, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, Ciudad de México, Mexico; School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia; University of Bradford, Bradford, United Kingdom; Science Education Department of Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia; University of São Paulo, São Carlos, Brazil; State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Campinas, Brazil; The Open University, Cardiff, United Kingdom; Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo, Norway; CareNet Research Group, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona, Spain; Center for Applied Ecology Baeta Neves (CEABN-InBIO), School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal; Pau Costa Foundation (PCF), Taradell, Spain; Center for Food Security Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa Univesity, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
