Barcelona City Council awards Verificat and CREAF for promoting critical thinking in classrooms to stop climate disinformation

The DesFake Clima project, led by the fact-checking platform Verificat and with the participation of CREAF as a scientific partner, has been recognized with the Barcelona City Council's Agenda 2030 Barcelona + Sustainable 2026 Award in the SDG People category among more than fifty candidates. The award recognizes initiatives that contribute to a more informed, critical and committed society to social and environmental challenges.

DesFake Clima was created with the aim of providing students in Barcelona with tools to identify and combat climate disinformation, a problem that is increasingly present on social networks and other digital channels. The project has combined educational activities, pedagogical resources and meetings with scientific professionals from different fields to promote critical thinking among half a thousand students and 80 teachers in Barcelona. From CREAF, the main contribution to this initiative has been the provision of scientific rigor in everything related to the climate emergency. The center's communication team has participated in educational sessions in schools and high schools to explain what climate change is, what its main causes and consequences are and what scientific evidence allows us to understand this global phenomenon. Shared publications have also been developed between CREAF and Verificat to debunk myths about climate change on social networks and give visibility to the essential collaboration between science and verification journalism.

In addition, CREAF coordinated a network of expert researchers from various research centers in Barcelona and from very diverse disciplines, all of them women, who have visited the educational centers involved to share their professional experience. Among them were CREAF researchers Melodia Tamayo and Mariona Ferrandiz. During the sessions with the students, the researchers have explained their lines of research, their personal journey to reach the scientific world and some of the myths and misinformation they encounter in their day-to-day lives, as well as the strategies they use to contrast and dismantle them.

"The students themselves chose which researcher they wanted to explain their field of research to them. Although we perceive a certain exhaustion among young people regarding the topic of climate change, approaching it from a critical spirit and the fight against disinformation has allowed us to generate genuine interest" explains Gerard Gaya, the CREAF communications technician who has provided the students with training on climate change.

“Recognizing educational proposals like Desfake Clima, which actively work in the fight against climate change from classrooms with media literacy tools, is essential to building a critical, informed and empowered citizenry,” says Carla Villares, coordinator of the Desfake educational program at Verificat.

This distinction from Barcelona City Council highlights the importance of collaboration between fact-checking journalism, the scientific community and educational centers to tackle climate disinformation. It also reinforces CREAF's commitment to scientific dissemination and knowledge transfer, especially among new generations, to promote a more critical, informed and prepared citizenry in the face of current environmental challenges.