France and the United Kingdom pioneered the organisation of citizens' climate assemblies to involve a broad representation of citizens in proposing measures and recommendations to address climate change at the national level (Climate Assembly UK, 2020). The EDUCLIMAD project aims to explore the innovative potential of climate assemblies, by contextualising and adapting it to the school context. Thus, this investigation presents school climate assemblies, conceived as an innovative educational tool for the co-creation of climate change and sustainability solutions within educational institutions and communities. An intervention research project has been designed and piloted in 24 Primary and High Education Schools in the region of Tarragona (Spain). This study is situated in a qualitative-interpretative research paradigm (Bisquerra, 2019) and is an Intervention Based Research (Tricket et al, 1996), which consists of designing and carrying out interventions to study the effects of the implementation of school climate assemblies. 

The study emphasizes the potential of co-creation methods in the educational context and underscores the critical role of education in fostering sustainability citizens and empowering students to become active change agents in their local community. The main objectives of EDUCLIMAD are: 1) Design, validate and pilot an instrument to assess the sustainability competences of primary and secondary school students, 2) Assess the influence of school climate assemblies on environmental awareness on the development of sustainability competences in primary and secondary school students, and 3) Design, test and develop a methodological framework and recommendations for conducting school climate assemblies. The activities foreseen in this project are organized in 3 phases: A first preparatory and design phase of educational and methodological materials and resources, including the design of an assessment instrument aligned with European competence framework on sustainability Greencomp (Bianchi et al, 2022).  This instrument is adapted to primary and secondary education and consists of a questionnaire related to sustainability knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, with 4 Likert-type response possibilities and 4 contextualised situations, following the pre-test and post-test design with the aim of measuring the level of competence among the students before and after implementing the school climatic assemblies. The second phase of the project involves the organization and development of school climate assemblies in 24 schools and the elaboration of an action plan and policy recommendations by the participating educational communities, and the third phase consists of evaluation and dissemination of the results, the educational resources derived from the project will be disseminated to agents of the territory, including political representatives and other educational centers in the area. The organization of a fair is foreseen in which the proposals can be presented to the different educational agents, entities of the territory and policy makers. The results suggest policy implications for integrating co-creation approaches into school curricula, aiming to empower students and drive sustainable action. This project is considered of scientific relevance because it presents the methodological conceptualisation for implementing climate assemblies in schools and the results of a pilot with primary and secondary school students, establishing a framework that can be replicated in different contexts and educational levels, which makes it adaptable and scalable.

In Europe, citizens' climate assemblies have been organised in different countries such as Finland, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Germany, Austria and Spain (Stack & Griessler, 2022). Based on these existing experiences of citizen climate assemblies, the school climate assemblies adopt a three-phase process related to their design and implementation and guided by facilitators (Grewin, 2018; Ferejohn, 2008). The first phase is preparatory and material design, including the design of an assessment instrument aligned with the European Commission's GreenComp sustainability competency framework (Bianchi et al, 2022). This instrument is adapted to both educational stages and consists of a questionnaire related to sustainability knowledge, attitudes and behaviors, with 4 Likert-type response possibilities and 4 contextualised situations, each of them related to one of the competence areas that structure the European GreenComp framework (Bianchi et al, 2022). Also, this instrument is applied following the pre-test and post-test design with the aim of measuring the level of competence among the students before and after implementing the school climatic assemblies. As for the post-test, the students have to qualitatively evaluate the process of the assemblies including its positive and negative aspects. The second phase consists of the organization of school climate assemblies in Primary and High schools and the elaboration of an action plan and policy recommendations. The last phase contemplates the dissemination of the project results and the educational resources designed. The specific phases of the school climate assemblies were carried out in the following steps: in the first step, students share their different perspectives related to a topic related to climate change proposing its challenges, positive and negative aspects in a conceptual map. Afterwards, 10 actions that are favorable to climate change are discussed and agreed upon collectively and written down in a decalogue. Then, each group presents its actions to the rest of the group and students must vote for the actions they prioritize according to their interests and needs. Once these decalogues are rigorously categorized by the team of technicians, the students are given feedback on the most voted actions so that they can reach a broader consensus with other members of the assembly in a critical manner to produce action plans, with the help of the team of facilitators. Finally, students will present their chosen policy recommendations at a fair where the educational community, families and political representatives will be invited to listen to their proposals and give feedback to the students.

The expected impacts of EDUCLIMAD project respond to real social and scientific challenges, which recognise the importance of promoting the active participation of citizens in climate action and sustainability, which include: increasing environmental awareness and development of GreenComp sustainability competences in primary and secondary school students through the school climate assemblies; design, implementation and validation of a GreenComp competencies assessment instrument that can be replicated in other schools and contexts; the co-creation of climate change adaptation and mitigation measures at local and regional level through the development of action plans and policy recommendations, and last but not least, the dissemination of the school climate assemblies through different communication channels like the project website, social networks and media aimed to interested audiences such as the educational community, social and political agents of the territory, and open publication of all materials and results in 3 languages (Catalan, Spanish and English). School climate assemblies can contribute to the development of sustainability competencies in students, associated with interpersonal competence and collective action and competencies related to values-thinking, future-thinking and collective action, which focuses on acting for change in collaboration with others and promoting learners’ ability and will to engage in democratic processes to achieve more sustainable societies. All this information is collected through the pre and post design instrument that is applied before and after implementing the school climate assemblies. For this reason there is a need to operationalise sustainability competencies at different educational levels through the design, validation and implementation of competency assessment instruments in order to assess and measure these kinds of competences. This approach has also the potential to inform and influence policy-making through the identification of actionable priorities and indicators where community learning and action can make a significant contribution and drive meaningful action to address climate change and sustainability challenges.

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