Stemming from the success of EduPARK, a FEDER & FCT funded project, and from its quality recognition in 2018, winning the prestigious Team Award for Innovation in Teaching & Learning attributed by the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU), the need to span its goals and impact is evident. From here emerges EduCITY that opens the park boundaries to the city, and to other cities, seeking to strengthen the university network with community partners, such as schools, municipalities, and enterprises. This network fosters knowledge further and creates opportunities for everyone to contribute to the cities’ sustainability, meaning that other cities can be inspired by, and replicate the ideas and solutions emerging from this project.
The big idea is to enhance sustainable cities through the creation of a disruptive smart learning environment, sustained by a mobile app with active location games based on challenges, with AR educational resources, such as simulations based on data from environmental sensors, 3D animations, informative spots, among others. These games are co-created by the school, academic and wider community, and comprise enjoyable and interdisciplinary challenges to be explored by any citizen while touring the city. This innovative pedagogy uses real-world pervasive and familiar technology (mobile devices) for ‘learning by doing’, where the AR games allow environmental awareness in the city – a living laboratory of experimentation – as citizens are “active scientists” and agents in sustainable changes, in a citizen science logic.
The main research question is: How does EduCITY – a smart learning city environment, integrating a user-friendly mobile app with co-created games and appealing AR resources, with paths and challenges, targeting educational stakeholders and the wider community – promote changes in knowledge, skills, values and attitudes in citizens to empower them towards sustainable development?
It is adopted a pragmatic paradigm with a design-based research approach towards practical (educational intervention) and theoretical (design framework) solutions, through successive cycles of improvement of the smart learning city environment based on inquiry and observation techniques to evaluate sustainability changes.
The EduCITY embraces research and training, and its feasibility is supported by a multidisciplinary team (with EduPARK members) from four research units with know-how in Education, Training, Sustainable Development and AR mobile games.
