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The COVID-19 lockdowns forced environmental educators to increase the use of digital technologies, bringing to the forefront the need for critical research on the implications for teaching practice. Through interviews in Barcelona, we explore how environmental educators perceived related opportunities and difficulties and how these connect with their competencies in environmental education. Non-formal educators reported a more comprehensive range of digital tools than those in formal settings and particularly highlighted the difficulty of sustaining the impact on environmental learning when replacing face-to-face methods with digital technologies. Interviewees commonly perceived motivational challenges. We discuss how these experiences were less related to educators' previous use of digital technologies and more to mastering specific competencies that can help them deal with emotions.

Grassroots initiatives towards climate resilience in cities are likely to embed environmental education practices with potential transformative impact among young people. Through interviews and document review, we examine two initiatives involving different non-formal educational actions in Barcelona: a civic ecology practice based on the community gardening of tree pits and an energy citizenship project with the school community. Despite their diverse nature and outcomes, these educational actions promoted by grassroots groups intend to boost young people's critical reflection, responsibility, and agency for taking individual action towards more climate-resilient cities. However, connections between agency, empowerment and transformative learning become more challenging when translated to the collective. Limitations relate to the lack of effective engagement approaches that reinforce social connectedness and local identity, and insufficient evaluation strategies. By discussing these potentials and challenges, we shed light on the synergies concerning transformative learning between the fields of environmental education and urban community resilience.

The European Commission policy approach of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is gaining momentum in European research planning and development as a strategy to align scientific and technological progress with socially desirable and acceptable ends. One of the RRI agendas is science education, aiming to foster future generations' acquisition of skills and values needed to engage in society responsibly. To this end, it is argued that RRI-based science education can benefit from more interdisciplinary methods such as those based on arts and digital technologies. However, the evidence existing on the impact of science education activities using digital media and arts-based methods on RRI values remains underexplored. This article comparatively reviews previous evidence on the evaluation of these activities, from primary to higher education, to examine whether and how RRI-related learning outcomes are evaluated and how these activities impact on students' learning. Forty academic publications were selected and its content analysed according to five RRI values: creative and critical thinking, engagement, inclusiveness, gender equality and integration of ethical issues. When evaluating the impact of digital and arts-based methods in science education activities, creative and critical thinking, engagement and partly inclusiveness are the RRI values mainly addressed. In contrast, gender equality and ethics integration are neglected. Digital-based methods seem to be more focused on students' questioning and inquiry skills, whereas those using arts often examine imagination, curiosity and autonomy. Differences in the evaluation focus between studies on digital media and those on arts partly explain differences in their impact on RRI values, but also result in non-documented outcomes and undermine their potential. Further developments in interdisciplinary approaches to science education following the RRI policy agenda should reinforce the design of the activities as well as procedural aspects of the evaluation research.

This article analyzes the knowledge and attitudes of high school students regarding the temperate mountain forest of La Malinche National Park, Tlaxcala, Mexico, before and after the implementation of the science communication program called "Los Tesoros de La Malinche" (The Treasures of La Malinche). The assessment included drawings, open questions, closed questions and Likert scale, and it was applied to 56 high school students (36 girls and 20 boys) from an urban school (29) in Mexico City and a rural school (27) located at the village of Ixtenco, Tlaxcala. The results showed that the development of the "Los Tesoros de La Malinche" program increased students' knowledge and awareness of biodiversity within the National Park. The program also reinforced positive attitudes toward biodiversity conservation at both local and global scales.

Introduction: Under the label of 'Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)', increasing efforts have been made over the past decade to make research and innovation (R&I) more open and inclusive to improve the way we solve today's complex challenges. However, no commonly accepted norms or standards on the practical implementation of RRI currently exist. One of today's challenges is how to facilitate its implementation within science education. This article aims to contribute to the necessary conceptual and practical grounding of RRI in STEAM (science, technology, engineering, the arts and mathematics) education by developing a framework of RRI competencies and by gaining insight into secondary school STEAM educators' practices and perspectives on teaching RRI competencies. It adds to an emerging research field in which science education contributes to solving real-world problems by focusing on competencies needed to participate in RRI processes. Methodology: After developing a Comprehensive Framework of RRI Competencies in STEAM education, we engaged secondary school teachers (n=40) involved in innovation within the education project Xplore Health (XH). Participants were recruited through purposive and homogenous sampling from three cities in Spain (Barcelona, Granada and A Coruña). Through one focus group in each city, we analysed teachers' perspectives on how well RRI competencies in the Framework were covered using the XH's educational resources and on how that coverage could be improved. Results: The results show that teachers encounter important limitations in addressing competencies within all the RRI process requirements: reflexivity, anticipation, inclusion and responsiveness. They suggested learning methods and actions for improving that coverage in secondary STEAM education. Discussion and conclusions: We conclude that the Comprehensive Framework of RRI Competencies helps teachers reflect on how to innovate in STEAM education and that Community-Based Participatory Research facilitates the development of most of the competencies teachers considered difficult to apply with the other approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between institutional funding for research and community-based or co-enquiry research practice. It examines the implementation of co-enquiry research in the COMBIOSERVE project, which was funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme for research and innovation, between the years 2012 and 2015. Research partnerships between Latin American and European civil society organisations, research institutions, and Latin American rural communities are analysed. Challenges for effective collaboration in co-enquiry and lessons learned for research policy and practice are outlined. Based on our case study we suggest that: (1) the established values and practices of academia seem largely unfavourable towards alternative forms of research, such as co-enquiry; (2) the policies and administrative practices of this European Commission funding are unsuitable for adopting participatory forms of enquiry; and (3) the approach to research funding supports short engagements with communities whereas long-term collaborations are more desirable. Based on our case study, we propose more flexible funding models that support face-to-face meetings between researchers and communities from the time of proposal drafting, adaptation of research processes to local dynamics, adaptation of administrative processes to the capacities of all participants, and potential for long-term collaborations. Large-scale funding bodies such as European Commission research programmes are leaders in the evolution of research policy and practice. They have the power and the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the value of partnerships with civil society organisations and communities, actively support co-enquiry, and foment interest in innovative forms of research.

Although efforts are being made to bring science closer to secondary school students, science is still mostly perceived within stereotypic frameworks, hindering students' identification with it. In this paper, we claim the role that arts-based approaches can play in science education to break these biased views and understandings and generate a more motivating science learning experience. For that purpose, we analyse research conducted with students from two secondary schools in Barcelona participating in a science education project applying drama-based activities within an inquiry process with early-career researchers. More specifically, we explore students' perceptions of science and their attitudes towards learning science at school and pursuing scientific careers. We then evaluate and discuss how the triad 'researchers' interaction -- scientific inquiry -- artistic creation' can potentially challenge their storylines about science and bring science learning closer to them. Findings suggest that the evaluated approach contributed to progress in this direction through two mechanisms: creating new rapports with science by offering a creative, inclusive and interactive learning experience, and broadening students' perceptions in terms of what implies to do science and who can do it.

The emerging paradigm of responsible research and innovation (RRI) in the European Commission policy discourse identifies science education as a key agenda for better equipping students with skills and knowledge to tackle complex societal challenges and foster active citizenship in democratic societies. The operationalisation of this broad approach in science education demands, however, the identification of assessment frameworks able to grasp the complexity of RRI process requirements and learning outcomes within science education practice. This article aims to shed light over the application of the RRI approach in science education by proposing a RRI-based analytical framework for science education assessment. We use such framework to review a sample of empirical studies of science education assessments and critically analyse it under the lenses of RRI criteria. As a result, we identify a set of 86 key RRI assessment indicators in science education related to RRI values, transversal competences and experiential and cognitive aspects of learning. We argue that looking at science education through the lenses of RRI can potentially contribute to the integration of metacognitive skills, emotional aspects and procedural dimensions within impact assessments so as to address the complexity of learning.