Between November 2024 and July 2025, six co-design sessions brought together 64 teachers across regions in Portugal. Their collaborative work produced six scripts that will now guide the development of VR-based videos for the VR4Empathy project.
Between November 2024 and July 2025, the Portuguese strand of the VR4Empathy project held six co-design sessions with 64 teachers, creating a collaborative space for educators to help shape the project’s future learning resources. These sessions were held in various regions of Portugal, including the North, Lisbon, and the Greater Porto area, reflecting a broad commitment to involving educators from different parts of the country.
The outcome of this work was the creation of 6 scripts, developed from teachers’ ideas, classroom perspectives, and educational priorities. These materials cover a rich range of themes related to European citizenship and diversity, including the legacy of Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Holocaust, refugee journeys, belonging, cinema under dictatorial regimes, censorship, artistic freedom, and modernist cultural movements. The scripts were designed to combine educational goals with immersive storytelling, incorporating scenes, locations, characters, and dialogue, making them relevant and engaging for students.
These results mark a key step forward for the project. The 6 scripts will now be selected, serving as the foundation for the development of VR-based videos, transforming the teachers’ contributions into immersive resources that will help foster reflection, historical awareness, and empathy in classrooms across Europe. Through this co-design process, Portuguese teachers have ensured that the future VR4Empathy materials are educationally meaningful and tailored to the realities of the classroom.
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