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Safe Climbing
Start date: Nov 1, 2016, End date: Apr 30, 2019 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Safe Climbing is a project that aims to improve safety in arboriculture around Europe. The idea for the project started when horticulture teachers and landscapers in Iceland started contemplating what could be done to improve safety for those working with a chainsaw while felling or pruning trees. The reason for that was a series of accidents in the past few years that have caused alarm in the professional community of landscaping and forestry. After some inquiry they found out that there were others in Europe in the same or similar shoes although in more populated countries the problems were larger (i.e. In Slovenia there are on average 16,4 deaths per year in arboriculture related work and the numbers are rising). The partners in this project are all specialized in different parts of the solution to this problem such as climbing and rigging, chainsaw maintenance, ECVET course descriptions, distance education, as well as being familiar with the business of arboriculture. They intend to work together to create innovative digital and interactive study material along with distance education solutions that should increase access to education in arboriculture, provide study material that meets the needs of a larger group of students and prepare students in a better way to get international certification in arboriculture enabling them to work in other countries within Europe and Canada. The study material is an E-Book on arboriculture that includes instructional pictures and videos and is tailored to meet the needs of students with disadvantages such as dyslexia or attention deficit disorder. The book will also include an interactive part that leads students to on-line tests after each chapter that yields an instant result so the students can reread the parts of the chapter they did not get a sufficient result for. This is a model that is innovative in study material and we see as the future. The other innovative part of this project is incorporating e-learning and distance education into practical courses like arboriculture. To minimize the students time on campus, away from work and family, we intend to set up courses that meet the needs of students that have a hard time staying away from their duties for long periods. By meeting the needs of students in this way we anticipate increased number of students seeking education in arboriculture and that should in effect lower the number of accidents with time. There are two big groups of students we are trying to accommodate in this project:The first is students with various reading and attention disadvantages that have a hard time reading massive textbooks and dry material. By providing digital material with the text divided into little pieces and complimented with pictures and videos we allow these students a better chance of getting through the material. The same is to say for students with attention deficit disorders that can not concentrate on long texts and need a active environment. These students are an increasing large part of the student body and they need to have material that suits their needs to be able to graduate and get sufficient scores on tests. Digital material suits young students well as they are more prone to reading on tablets, phones and computers rather than carry heavy textbooks.The second group is people that are going to school later in life. They usually have demanding jobs, families and a long line of responsibilities that they can not easily leave to go to school. Schools can be few and far between them and that means even longer time away for those students that need to travel a long way to school or even move to complete their studies. We intend to meet the needs of this group by constructing courses that will be offered through distance education so that students can minimize the time they spend at school. Students will get study material and information through and online E-learning platform as well as projects they need to solve and an exercise plan (physical exercises to prepare for climbing). Once they have finished their preparation they will come to school to finish their practical studies with the teachers.Our goal is to create study material and courses that can benefit students all around Europe (and further) to improve safety and reduce the chance of serious accidents in arboriculture. We know there is need for the material and we hope it will be used in many (or most) arboriculture schools in Europe. In the future we hope the E-book will evolve into a SmartBook so the videos and tests can be fully incorporated into one document and we will continue our work after this project ends to make that happen.
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