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This study addresses the current state of environmental and climate change education, the instructional challenges encountered, and the transformative impact of digital technologies in this field. The limited focus on environmental issues in curricula and teachers' difficulties in teaching climate change underscore the need for constructivist and interdisciplinary approaches. The EU-funded CEATY project emphasizes the role of online platforms and interactive digital tools in raising young people's environmental awareness and encouraging their participation in climate action. The project aims to raise students’ awareness of climate change and energy efficiency, and to train them as “Clean Energy Ambassadors” who actively contribute to environmental sustainability and societal behavioral transformation. The project aims to improve teachers’ climate literacy, foster students’ eco-friendly behaviors through interactive, game-based learning, encourage knowledge transfer to families and communities, and empower youth as climate change agents via innovative digital tools. The project has been implemented through several phases, including needs analysis, curriculum development, digital content creation, pilot applications, dissemination and sustainability strategies. As part of the needs analysis, surveys were conducted with participants, and the data informed the development of the educational curriculum, e-learning platform, e-library, and interactive clean energy game. The tools and content were prepared in multiple languages, evaluated through pilot testing, refined based on feedback, and disseminated nationally and internationally through outreach activities. The project outcomes contributed to the development of students’ environmental literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, problem-solving, and digital skills. Students shared their learning with their families and communities, encouraging broader societal behavior change. Teachers supported their professional development with innovative digital content and strengthened their pedagogical approaches. Parents stated that awareness of environmental and energy issues, in turn, enhanced family-level consciousness. The project demonstrates that collaborative, innovative, and technology-supported educational practices aligned with sustainability goals effectively empower younger generations to address the climate crisis.

The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a country with a profound historical background that has shaped the course of world civilization throughout history. As a political, economic, and cultural global power, China plays a critical role not only in regional affairs also in international relations. Obtaining the world’s second-largest economy, the country’s education system has roots that extend from antiquity to the present. The development and characteristics of Chinese education, the origins and formation of Chinese educational culture, education during the Han Dynasty, the Tang period education system, education in the Song, Ming, and Qing Dynasties, Confucian education, and the new educational model after 1840 shaped by Western influence can be explained across five historical stages. The structure of schools is organized as preschool, primary education, secondary education, upper secondary education (general and vocational high schools), and higher education. At present the financing of compulsory education is supported by both central and provincial governments, municipal and local administrations still hold the most significant position, whereas higher education largely falls under the responsibility of central and provincial governments. In the early days of China's founding, teacher training was largely influenced by Europe. Later, Chinese educational scholars also studied the Soviet Union's teacher training system and subsequently established more independent pre-service and in-service teacher training systems. In 2021, the 13th National People’s Congress approved the 14th Five-Year Plan and the 2035 Vision, which submits China’s long-term development strategy toward 2035. In the field of education, the plan underscores strengthening a high-quality education system. The People's Republic of China, with its extensive historical heritage and development vision, continues to be a significant global actor. This study concludes that its strategic steps focused on education and science will strengthen China's future role and enable it to demonstrate sustainable leadership both regionally and internationally.

It is possible that teachers from different disciplines can bring new perspectives and teaching methodologies to the classroom environment. Diversity can expose students to a broader range of knowledge and enrich the educational process. However, this difference also leads to some adaptation difficulties, especially regarding pedagogical preparation and classroom management. Teaching is defined as a special branch of expertise that carries out educational activities and administrative affairs in this field, according to the National Education Fundamental Law No. 1739. Teaching, as a special field of expertise, undertakes an important task in achieving the ultimate goals of educational institutions. Although the teaching profession is such an important and separate field of specialization, in Turkey's recent history for different reasons, graduates of different higher education programs, regardless of whether they are related to education or not, have been appointed as teachers through short-term in-service training and the need for teachers has been tried to be met in this way. In Turkey, it may be possible for individuals who have not received teaching formation to be appointed as teachers or to be deemed competent and appointed in a field through the additional courses they take during their teacher training. The discrepancy between the field in which teachers are trained and the task they are assigned to may initially cause adaptation problems and low productivity. In addition, assignments outside the field may cause deficiencies in courses or pedagogical approaches that require specialization, which may negatively affect the academic success of students. Teacher deficiencies in these areas can lead to gaps in student learning and quality problems in education. In this context, it is of great importance that education policies and teacher training programs are shaped by taking into account the needs of teachers.

This study is based on the “Environmental Detectives” eTwinning project, conducted with 8 teachers and 138 primary school students from Turkey, Romania, Poland, Spain, Georgia, and Greece. The project aims to enhance students’ awareness of environmental issues and foster environmentally conscious, responsible, inquisitive, and sustainability-minded individuals. To this end, hands-on, experience- based, and collaborative activities were conducted, focusing on energy and water conservation, forest protection, recycling, conscious use of natural resources, waste management, and environmental cleanliness. Students identified environmental problems in their daily lives, discussed cause-and-effect relationships, created concept maps, and developed creative solutions. They also participated in online meetings with peers from partner countries, collaboratively producing e-books, videos, posters, digital presentations, virtual exhibitions, and shared digital products to raise environmental awareness. These activities significantly enhanced students’ creativity, communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, empathy, and digital literacy skills. Ten activities were designed in alignment with Turkish curriculum outcomes, adopting an interdisciplinary, constructivist approach integrated into classroom learning. Three activities were implemented through international collaboration, producing shared outputs, intercultural learning opportunities, and collective experiences. The research was structured as a qualitative case study. Data were collected from student products, activity reports, observations, feedback, teacher interviews, and online meeting records, and analyzed through content analysis. Findings revealed notable improvements in students’ observation, research, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills. Moreover, students demonstrated increased environmental awareness, empathy, and a stronger sense of responsibility toward nature. At the conclusion, all participants received National and European Quality Labels in recognition of the project’s innovative approach, pedagogical value, cultural contribution, and sustainable impact

Traditional developmental research suggested a significant lag between the emergence of false belief understanding and its integration with emotion understanding. This critical review argues that such findings resulted from a combination of high computational loads in verbal tasks, a lack of ecological validity in decontextualized narratives, and a conceptual tendency to treat emotions as retrospective outcomes of a situation rather than as informative signals that help decode it. By synthesizing research utilizing implicit measures, such as looking time, proactive helping, and spontaneous facial expressions, a more coherent developmental timeline emerges. This review proposes that the early competence observed in the second year of life is best understood by viewing emotions as "relational signifiers" that highlight the relational significance of an agent's goals and constraints. Under this framework, children’s social competence is grounded in a bidirectional link: while beliefs inform emotional expectations, emotional displays serve as diagnostic cues for resolving social ambiguity and reasoning about hidden mental states.