Bioethical Education and Attitude Guidance for Living Environment or BEAGLE is a bioethical project funded and approved by the European Union (Erasmus+), which brings together international partners from the Mediterranean Pool with the aim of promoting open education and innovative educational practices. Associations Petit Philosophy (Croatia), StePS (Italy) and InternetNow! (Greece) with Centre for Integrative Bioethics of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Split (Croatia), and Faculty of Theology of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) have decided to share their experiences with the intention of developing new ones, which will help them in the creation, testing and implementation of innovative methods of education and teaching based on bioethical values.

The idea that drives this project forward is that recent rapid development of technology requires a new approach to teaching – education systems and professors are struggling to keep up with new technical capabilities, and the purpose of the project is to provide educators with a methodological framework and guidelines that will help them with introducing innovative practices in the contemporary environment. On the other hand, same as teachers, students are trying to keep up with the contemporary surroundings, surroundings which suppress the relationship with the environment, more precisely with the nature. BEAGLE’s partners are motivated to believe that bioethical values ​​and critical thinking are crucial elements, now more than ever, of the development of a democratic, pluralistic, ecologically aware open society, which is why the focus of general education should be shifted on these elements. The BEAGLE project, therefore, as the primary user of this project sees students (6 to 18 years old) equally as teachers.

The purpose of the project is to develop concrete guidelines for bioethical education that will assist teachers in implementing higher order skills, especially critical thinking. Additionally, with the development of educational materials and manuals BEAGLE will further improve the development of teaching staff, and the available materials will also address the practical application of educational strategies – such as organizing and conducting bioethical workshops, developing Socratic dialogue, etc. Given that the project is devoted equally to students and teachers, the focus will be on the conduct of bioethical workshops with the aim of developing bioethical values ​​and critical thinking in students. Furthermore, BEAGLE will develop a transnational school curriculum for bioethical education in which will revise the current representation of bioethical values ​​and critical thinking in schools. Ultimately, the development of the BEAGLE online archive and bioethical education network will link all teachers and educators across an open platform that will optimize the exchange of experiences and encourage faster implementation of innovative methods.