Nowadays, science education is based predominantly on the principle of constructivism, according to which children should be active participants in the learning process and construct their knowledge based on experience. For blind or visually impaired children, science education methods and educational tools must be adapted according to their perceptual needs, in order for these children to be active participants in the learning process. The aim of the current paper is to describe the latest view on active and inquiry-based learning in science education for blind or visually impaired children while simultaneously minimizing misconceptions. Further, the paper compiles the recent research that enables prosperous and high-quality adaptive educational approaches and tools. Thus, the content of this paper will be useful for both science teachers and researchers of inclusive classrooms.

Coastal climate services play a crucial role in developing customised climate information for diverse end-users and stakeholders. To build climate-resilient societies, decision-makers should be empowered through easy access to powerful tools that enable timely adaptation to future and ongoing hazards. For this reason, fit-for-purpose climate services are needed to conduct accurate historical characterisation and projections for interpretative studies on climate- and water-related risks at the local coastal scale. The EU-funded SCORE project (Smart Control of Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities) utilises climate and marine services for the development of smart technologies that support nature-based solutions to address specific concerns, including rising sea levels, coastal erosion, and coastal flooding due to extreme weather events. As part of the SCORE project, decision-makers will be able to address climate change-related coastal effects in their own cities through novel participatory approaches (Coastal City Living Labs—CCLLs). As part of this framework, this work (i) discusses the main requirements for the identification of fit-for-purpose coastal climate services for local-scale impact studies in European coastal cities based on CCLL requests and prior knowledge and (ii) provides relevant parameters and features that fulfil the users’ needs.

Climate change resilience for urban coastal communities is a pressing matter considering hazards like sea-level rise, coastal flooding and erosion. Adapting to such changes and creating climate change resilience should be an all-stakeholder process. This paper discusses the early stages of stakeholder participation through a co-creation living lab (LL) approach in the Mediterranean coastal town of Piran. To achieve climate change resilience ecosystem-based approaches (EBAs) are used as tools, while in Piran the novel coastal city LL (CCLL) approach is supposed to facilitate a process to achieve acceptance and implementation of such EBA solutions, through consented decision of representative stakeholders from each of the quadruple helix framework, including citizens. During this process several organisational limitations were encountered such as the question of incentivizing stakeholders, man-hour devotion, appointing contact persons within large organisations, and the challenge of organising continuous personal face-to-face meetings. Parallel to previous findings that defining a shared vision is necessary for a successful CCLL, we emphasize that newly retrieved specific challenges identified through personal communication with stakeholders, and capitalising on those, further motivated the stakeholders. These specific challenges represent pressing issues, for example: how to retrieve and revalorize the historical water management system; how to improve the existing early warning system; how to empower and educate, through climate action, the town's community that is facing population decline through tourism gentrification. The experience by the authors of this paper suggests that continuous interaction with stakeholders and facilitating multidisciplinary activities based on stakeholder's prior knowledge and experience, are best practices in the co-creation of the urban living lab. Funding This research has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 101003534. Acknowledgments The authors would like to acknowledge and thank all the engaged stakeholders for their involvement and sharing their visions, as well as previously project-engaged colleagues at ZRS (She Mackenzie Hawke, Blaz Lenarcic, Irina Moira Cavaion and Kristjan Nemac), and the SCORE project partners for their input and guidance. Izzivi za načrtovanje odpornosti na podnebne spremembe s pristopom soustvarjanja živega laboratorija v sredozemskem obalnem mestu Piran. Odpornost mestnih obalnih skupnosti na podnebne spremembe je pereča zadeva glede na nevarnosti, kot so dvig morske gladine, obalne poplave in erozija. Prilagajanje takšnim spremembam in ustvarjanje odpornosti na podnebne spremembe bi moralo biti proces, v katerem bi sodelovale vse zainteresirane strani. Ta članek obravnava zgodnje faze sodelovanja deležnikov s pristopom soustvarjalnega živega laboratorija (LL) v sredozemskem obalnem mestu Piran. Za doseganje odpornosti na podnebne spremembe se kot orodja uporabljajo ekosistemski pristopi (EBA), medtem ko naj bi v Piranu pristop novega obalnega mesta LL (CCLL) olajšal proces sprejemanja in implementacije takšnih rešitev EBA s soglasno odločitvijo predstavnika deležniki iz vsakega okvira štirih vijačnic, vključno z državljani. Med tem postopkom je naletelo na več organizacijskih omejitev, kot je vprašanje spodbujanja deležnikov, predanosti delovnih ur, imenovanja kontaktnih oseb v velikih organizacijah in izziv organiziranja stalnih osebnih srečanj iz oči v oči. Vzporedno s prejšnjimi ugotovitvami, da je opredelitev skupne vizije nujna za uspešen CCLL, poudarjamo, da so na novo pridobljeni specifični izzivi, ugotovljeni v osebni komunikaciji z deležniki, in izkoriščanje le-teh dodatno motivirali deležnike. Ti specifični izzivi predstavljajo pereča vprašanja, na primer: kako obnoviti in revalorizirati zgodovinski sistem upravljanja voda; kako izboljšati obstoječi sistem zgodnjega opozarjanja; kako prek podnebnih ukrepov opolnomočiti in izobraževati mestno skupnost, ki se zaradi gentrifikacije turizma sooča z upadanjem prebivalstva. Izkušnje avtorjev tega prispevka kažejo, da sta stalna interakcija z deležniki in spodbujanje multidisciplinarnih dejavnosti, ki temeljijo na predhodnem znanju in izkušnjah deležnikov, najboljša praksa pri soustvarjanju laboratorija urbanega življenja.FinanciranjeTa raziskava je prejela sredstva iz programa Evropske unije za raziskave in inovacije Obzorje 2020 v okviru pogodbe o dodelitvi sredstev št. 101003534.ZahvalaAvtorja se zahvaljujeta vsem vključenim deležnikom za njihovo sodelovanje in delitev svojih vizij, kot tudi predhodno projektno angažiranim sodelavcem na ZRS (She Mackenzie Hawke, Blaž Lenarčičl, Irina Moira Cavaion in Kristjan Nemac) in partnerjem v projektu SCORE za njihov prispevek in usmerjanje.

The escalating frequency and severity of climate-related hazards in the Mediterranean, particularly in the historic town of Piran, Slovenia, underscore the critical need for enhanced coastal flood prediction and efficient early warning systems. This study delves into the impediments of available coastal flood hazard maps and the existing early warning system, which rely on distant sensors, neglecting the town’s unique microclimate. The current study leverages the public registry maintained by the Administration of the Republic of Slovenia for Civil Protection and Disaster Relief (URSZR), an underutilized resource for generating comprehensive and accurate flooding maps for Piran. Here, we show that in the historic town of Piran, floodings reported through the national registry can be used to map coastal flooding by means of verification and validation of the georeferenced reports therein, with subsequent correlation analysis (hotspot, cluster, and elevation polygons) that show temporal and spatial patterns. The innovative approach adopted in this study aims to bolster the accuracy and reliability of flooding data, offering a more nuanced understanding of flood patterns (in Piran, but generally applicable where national or regional registries are available). The findings of this research illuminate the pressing need for localized field-report and sensor systems to enhance the precision of flood predictions. The study underscores the pivotal role of accurate, localized data in fortifying coastal towns against the escalating impacts of climate change, safeguarding both the inhabitants and the invaluable architectural heritage of historic areas.

Climate change is seriously impacting coastal biodiversity and the benefits it provides to humans. This issue is particularly relevant in the case of the European Union’s Natura 2000 network of areas for nature protection, where the sensitivity of local ecosystems calls for intervention to increase resistance and resilience to climate-related risks. Given the complex ways in which climate can influence conservation hotspot areas, there is a need to develop effective strategic approaches and general operational models to identify priorities for management and inform adaptation and mitigation measures. Here, a novel methodological proposal to perform climate risk assessment in Natura 2000 sites is presented that implements the systematic approach of ISO 14090 in combination with the theoretical framework of ecosystem services assessment and local stakeholder participation to identify climate-related issues for local protected habitats and improve the knowledge base needed to plan sustainable conservation and restoration measures. The methodology was applied to five Natura 2000 sites located along the Adriatic coast of Italy and Slovenia. Results show that each of the assessed sites, despite being along the coast of the same sea, is affected by different climate-related issues, impacting different habitats and corresponding ecosystem services. This novel methodology enables a simple and rapid screening for the prioritization of conservation actions and of the possible further investigations needed to support decision making, and was found to be robust and of general applicability. These findings highlight the importance of designing site-specific adaptation measures, tailored to address the peculiar response to climate change of each site in terms of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Water is a basic element of the natural environment and the most important component in human water management. Rainfall is the main source of water. Therefore, determining the amount of precipitation reaching the ground using sensors is crucial information. Precise precipitation data are necessary for better modeling quality, as the observation data from weather stations are used as basics for weather model assessment. The authors compared precipitation from the Hellmann rain gauge (climatic precipitation, 1.0 m above the ground surface) measured throughout the year and the GGI 3000 rain gauge (actual precipitation on the ground level) measured from April to October. Measurement sequences from the years 2011–2020 were considered. The data for analysis were obtained from a weather station located in northern Poland. The authors analyzed the relationships between data from the two sensors. A comparative study showed that the measurements of actual precipitation are higher and there are strong relationships between actual and climatic rainfall (r = 0.99). Using the introduced coefficient it is possible to determine the full–year actual precipitation with high probability, taking into account the precipitation with a correction from the winter half-year and the actual precipitation from the summer half-year, which is of great importance in the calculation of the water balance.