"<< Background >>In recent years, significant progress has been made in understanding climate change, its causes and consequences. The warming of the climate system is undeniable. However, there is also a deluge of misinformation designed to confuse the public and generate doubt about the existence of climate change.Politicians, scientists and practitioners have drawn attention to the problem of misinformation in the climate change debate. Fake News can have a devastating effect on issues where understanding observable and scientific facts is essential. As a result, opinion is divided on fundamental issues such as man-made global warming.Nevertheless, the majority of younger people consider the fight against climate change a fundamental task and many young people are actively involved (https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/2224). On the other hand, studies have shown that older adults are more susceptible to the spread of fake news and digital misinformation in general (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341496718_Aging_in_an_Era_of_Fake_News). They tend to be less informed and more sceptical about climate change.In order to counter online misinformation, we need an understanding of the techniques employed in climate misinformation, as well as approaches to neutralise misinforming content. Critical thinking and media literacy are key. Thus, the project addresses very urgent needs of the global community to find strategies to combat climate change. To do this, all parts of society must be properly informed and empowered so that they can engage those who may still doubt climate change.Stop Lies About Climate Change (SLACC) is taking up these findings and adopts an innovative approach. The project tackles climate fake news in the context of youth work, to strengthen young people as potential “Climate Ambassadors” who support their parents' and grandparents' generation in debunking populist distortions about our climate.Therefore, SLACC has been carefully designed to meet the needs of European youth workers and is aligned with partners’ needs, all of whom are training providers to youth workers or young people.Needs of training providers to young people:Training providers around Europe share a common need to engage in climate education and to find novel ways to address young people's interests. By working in a European project the SLACC consortium can combine expertise and experience to successfully develop a new and transferable approach. Climate Change is one of the EUs education priorities and SLACC’s focus on building competences to fight climate change will allow training providers to integrate transversal, digital, social and climate competences that have been in focus over the last years.Needs of youth workers:Youth work needs to address current trends so that it remains attractive to young people and reflects their needs. SLACC can provide playful and innovative informal learning tools for youth workers.Needs of young people:A Eurobarometer poll shows that 67% of Europeans aged 15-30 express that fighting climate change should be the EU's top priority. Against this background SLACC addresses their needs by providing them with gamified learning aimed to:-empower them to expose distorted facts among their parents and grandparents and motivate them to live more climate-consciously.-equip them with critical thinking skills and media literacy as well as with communication and advocacy competences.Needs of older generations:As mentioned above, older people are more likely to fall for fake news. This means that they need to be sensitised to fake news. SLACC responds to their needs by providing them with tailored information in the form of intergenerational learning, with the aim of encouraging them to adopt more climate-friendly behaviour.<< Objectives >>The project SLACC tackles climate fake news in the context of youth work. The overall objective of SLACC is to strengthen young people as potential climate ambassadors who support their parents' and grandparents' generation in debunking populist distortions about our climate. In doing so, we contribute to two important European priorities - “Environment and fight against climate change” as well as “Increasing quality, innovation and recognition of youth work”. This will be achieved by developing a state-of-the-art online learning game and accompanying resources to support youth workers, trainers and educators working with young people. Through the SLACC programme they will increase their capacity, competence and resources available to them to promote critical thinking skills, necessary to expose lies about climate change, misrepresentations of facts and scientific findings. The ultimate goal is for them to prepare young people to become climate ambassadors to defend our planet against destructive practices.To achieve this SLACC adopts a two-fold reach-out and impact strategy: (1)Youth workers will be provided with a training course aimed to enable them to use innovative gamified digital resources and face-to-face methods to strengthen young people in rejecting lies and misinformation about Climate Change and to build up their confidence as ambassadors for Climate Protection. Using gamification as a motivational strategy to empower young people as Climate Ambassadors and equip them to be able to detect lies about Climate Change is a new education method in this context.(2)Young people will be provided with an informal, playful learning opportunity that uses the motivational power of gamification to foster their critical thinking and equip them with the knowledge and skills to counter climate myths with scientific facts. This will empower them to spread truthful information and attitudes about our climate among their peers as well as their parents' and grandparents' generation to motivate them to live more climate conscious lifes. The achievements targeted by SLACC for different target groups can be summarised as follows:(1) Youth workers are provided with resources that give them the chance to keep their activities attractive to young people and that reflect their needs.(2) Young people are given the opportunity to actively engage with a topic that the majority of young people feel is important. SLACC also gives them the platform to learn how to become climate ambassadors and thus make a positive contribution to combating climate change and protecting our planet for their own and future generations.(3) Older generations benefit from intergenerational learning as they are provided with tailored information by their (grand)children to educate them about the lies of climate change and encourage them to adopt more climate-friendly behaviour that will benefit future generations.(4) The project will spur achievements for partners and other providers of training for young people. The SLACC consortium has a wide range of knowledge and experience - knowledge of climate change, experience with fake news and its debunking, skills in developing trainings, gamified online platforms, practical approaches to validating informal learning and creating digital badges - which uniquely qualifies it to develop this innovative gamified approach. Training providers around Europe will profit from such a new viable and transferable approach that allows them to integrate climate-related topics into current activities in novel ways to address young people's interests and needs. Therefore, the project gives us the chance to take up wider trends and policy with our training activities. Climate Change is one of the European education priorities and SLACC’s focus on building competences to fight climate change will allow us to integrate transversal, digital, social and climate competences that have been in focus over the last years.<< Implementation >>Climate change will be the challenge of the next decades that nobody will be able to escape. Therefore, all members of society need to develop the skills to contribute to cope with it. To this end, we will develop new training resources that can be used with youth workers to enable them to address the issue in a playful and targeted way with young people who are involved in youth activities and who become climate ambassadors.The project consortium will develop four new resources:●R1: SLACC Compilation: The first phase includes a qualitative research consisting of desk research on fake news about climate change and strategies to counter them. In addition, qualitative interviews with youth workers (3/country) and focus groups with young people (8-10/country) on their experience with sharing and debunking fake news on climate change will be conducted. The results will form the basis for further development of subsequent results and will also provide partners with an overview of existing climate myths and practical examples to debunk them. This phase will also consolidate working relationships with associated partners, who will be interviewed on relevant topics.●R2: SLACC Game and online gamification environment: Based on the qualitative research a range of multimedia learning content (videos, learning quizzes etc.) around the deliberately distorted representations of Climate Change and the real scientific facts will be created and (co-)produced by young people themselves, supported by youth workers. The multimedia contents will be inserted in the Gamification platform.●R3: SLACC mobile App: Relevant contents from R2 will be prepared and made available in a mobile learning app to give young people easy access to the interactive learning formats.The app is also used to validate learning by rewarding learning outcomes with a digital badge.●R 4: SLACC training programme will be based on previous Rs and will be a highly interactive, modular course to address climate myths in an informal, gamified way. It will use the gamified SLACC platform and games in general as pedagogic approach with the ultimate aim to empower young people to become Climate Ambassadors.Youth workers can find elements in all the resources that they can use independently or as a whole package in their activities to specifically strengthen the young people's competences. They in turn become ""trainers"" themselves and pass on their knowledge.All resources will be published online and can be downloaded and used free of charge. Where possible, editable formats are used so that materials can be adapted and transferred for further use.The consortium will carry out various activities to implement the SLACC resources and involve the target groups:●In the first project phase, 20 youth workers and 60-70 young people will be asked about their experiences with climate myths and their strategies to debunk them. In this way, it is assured that the experience and knowledge of the target groups is incorporated directly into the development work.●21 Youth workers will participate in a training course and subsequently implement learning projects with 150 young people. This will contribute to improving and finalising materials and promotion, as well as playing an important role in our multiplier events, and sustainability strategy as multipliers for the impact of the project.●In terms of dissemination, the plan we have is sound and will be supported by seven events scheduled for months 22/23. These will ensure that our results are promoted and that stakeholders actively understand their value and are motivated to introduce them into their own organisations.●The development of the results will be accompanied by transversal and project management activities to ensure their implementation, effectiveness and sustainability as resources for sustainable use in European youth work.<< Results >>Climate change will be the challenge of the next decades that nobody will be able to escape. Therefore, all members of society need to develop the skills to contribute to cope with it. To this end, we will develop new training resources that can be used-with youth workers to enable them to address the issue in a playful and targeted way with young people-with young people who are involved in youth activities and who become climate ambassadorsAs immediate results of the project SLACC will develop four new resources:Result 1 – SLACC Compilation on climate fake news: a systematic collection of myths, populist misconceptions and distorted scientific facts about climate change that are spread on the internet and in social media in particular. These will be accompanied with the corresponding scientific facts that help to unmask the fake news, and strategies and best practices to counter climate misinformation that can be employed by young people. Result 2 - SLACC Game and online gamification environment: a range of Multimedia learning content around the deliberately distorted representations of Climate Change and the real scientific facts that are available. Result 3: SLACC mobile App: a learning App with interactive gamified learning contents on climate myths. The app will allow for the validation of informal learning which enables participants to receive a digital competence badge. Result 4: SLACC training programme for youth workers: a highly interactive, modular course that enables them to understand scientific facts about Climate Change and recognise fake news and how they are generated and spread in Social Media, use the gamified SLACC platform and games in general as pedagogic approach with young people with the ultimate aim to empower young people to become Climate Ambassadors. An implementation guide with an overview of the current lies about Climate Change, an introduction to gamification, guidance and materials for informal online and face-face learning strengthening young people as Climate ambassadors, as well as highlights and lessons learnt from implementing the SLACC approach will accompany the training modules and can be used as additional resource.Immediate outcomes of the SLACC project will be:-21 youth workers and 60-70 young people will be involved in interviews and focus groups (R1). They will learn about climate myths and how they are spread and will be motivated to continue to develop their knowledge and skills in terms of thinking critically and debunk climate myths.-21 youth workers will participate in the LTTA: they will be involved in the training course and will develop their competences to embed the topic of climate change, climate myths and how to debunk them into their informal learning activities with young people -150 young people who will be involved in the piloting activities carried out in the partner countries after the LTTAOther Results:The project will make a significant contribution to updating the education offered in the youth sector and complementing it with very topical issues. This will ensure that youth work addresses current issues with innovative learning methods and reflects global trends and priorities:-Partners and youth organisations will have more relevant, high quality training products that are free to use-Youth workers will be able to apply innovative gamified learning methods and use them in their work with young people-Young people will act as climate ambassadors and encourage older generations to act in a climate-friendly way-Older people will be empowered by the climate ambassadors and encouraged to act in a climate-friendly wayThe project will generate results for the partner organisations: They will develop the competences of their own staff and trainers in educational as well as practical ways. They will learn about innovative gamified training approaches that can be transferred to other target groups."