The purpose of this paper is to explore teachers’ awareness, experiences, and perceptions regarding the environmental impact of digitalization in school education across five European countries. Using an existential phenomenological approach, the study uncovers the lived experiences of 29 teachers, who participated in group semi-structured interviews. The findings highlight that teachers share a strong awareness of contemporary environmental challenges, such as climate change and pollution, and that environmental education is integrated into most school curricula, especially topics like recycling, composting, and pollution. Teachers express a genuine concern for educating students about global warming and its consequences, recognizing that today’s students will shape the future. Despite acknowledging the benefits of technology in education, teachers are not fully informed about the environmental impact of digitalization. The paper reveals teachers’ concerns about the energy consumption, carbon emissions, and electronic waste associated with digital technologies. Teachers propose strategies to address the environmental impact of digitalization, including prolonging device lifespans, responsible e-waste recycling, and promoting energy-efficient practices. They emphasize the need for proper teacher training in incorporating digitalization’s environmental impact into the curriculum. The study underscores the importance of engaging students through research activities, discussions, multimedia resources, and hands-on experiences to raise awareness about digitalization’s ecological footprint. Implications of a more informed and proactive approach to addressing the ecological footprint of digital technologies in school education are discussed.

Creative learning is increasingly being recognised as a crucial part of children’s holistic education. In this paper, we critically explore our experiences as artist-educators working across four differing European countries, namely, England, Iceland, Germany, and Greece in relation to differing educational policy. These experiences of practice are set against educational policy landscapes which have progressively eroded opportunities for young people to engage in the creative arts in education across many European states. As artist educators, we are involved in a three-year Erasmus+ funded project, "arted", which aims to transfer the knowledge of artists working in education to school and home contexts in response to these eroded opportunities. Using Deleuzian theory (Deleuze and Guattari, 2004) and narrative inquiry, to offer an alternative reading of policy texts, we examine our own ideologies of creativity and principles of practice within differing national curricular contexts. The rhizo-textual analysis (Honan, 2007) highlights the ‘pedagogical characteristics’ which have enabled us to hold resistance spaces for creative arts learning, acting as a social critique of policy. Through the process of this analysis three ethical principles emerge which underpin our interactive guides for teachers and parents within the project.

This study examines teachers’ awareness, experiences, and perceptions concerning Ocean Literacy (OL), with particular emphasis on their knowledge levels and the pedagogical, structural, and institutional challenges associated with integrating OL into formal education. Since the early 2000s, the concept of Ocean Literacy has been defined as understanding the ocean’s influence on humans and humans’ influence on the ocean. The paper draws on work conducted within the Erasmus+ project Sea Tales, one of whose aims was to explore and deepen understanding of Ocean Literacy. Employing a cross-cultural comparative design, this research analyses how OL is conceptualised and enacted within educational contexts in Iceland, Greece, Portugal, and Romania. A mixed-methods methodology was adopted, comprising a systematic literature review, country-specific investigations, co-design sessions with educators and relevant OL stakeholders, and a large-scale teacher survey (N = 266). Findings indicate a pronounced discrepancy between teachers’ high motivation to incorporate OL and the limited institutional and pedagogical support available to them. The study advocates for the development of a holistic, flexible, and multi-tiered teacher training framework that is responsive to contextual constraints, offers accessible and ready-to-use materials, and provides differentiated pathways that cater to both novice and experienced educators.