On September 25th, the Beacon Action held, in Brussels, its first meeting of the project. The BEACON Action (https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA24106/) intends to define higher standards in the area of health education, for European high school students. This action represents a joint interdisciplinary initiative to develop an educational platform, with state-of-the-art technology, more specifically, adaptive technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, and immersive tools such as augmented reality and virtual reality, to support One Health education.

The Beacon Action aims to empower all learners to become more proactive and responsible citizens, by promoting a better understanding of the complex interconnections between human, animal, and environmental health. In a context of health crises, climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequalities, it is important to equip students to address these global challenges.

In this first meeting, four of the five Working Groups gathered to brainstorm, define their priorities and structure the initial steps of the project. Group 1, titled curriculum development & research, defines early research priorities and data sharing as its focus. Group 2, educator training & capacity building, will address teacher support and training modules. Group 3, titled student engagement & challenge-driven actions, concentrates on students as central actors in the BEACON Action. Group 4, monitoring, evaluation & impact assessment, will draft evaluation protocols and outline key performance indicators. IADIS was present as the leader of Working Group 4, in this meeting which represented the official kick-off of the BEACON Action, and invites you to participate in the Working Groups. You can apply to join, by using the following link: https://e-services.cost.eu/user/login. Collaboratively, we can help to empower young learners.