Edutainment in the Magic Tower: Environmental awareness as a lifelong learning process

The type and nature of the environmental problems we are facing currently require an adaptive environmental education that is a lifelong learning process rather than a matter of formal schooling. The Magic Tower Science Career Orientation Center and Museum at the Eszterházy Károly University Eger has been committed since its foundation to promote lifelong learning, and establish, in general, an atypical, informal, and non-formal science educational culture in Northern Hungary. One of the target areas of the Tower are the current environmental issues faced by the humanity. In the recent years, the Tower has launched several self-paced and inquiry-based science programs that intended to raise motivation towards environmental sciences, and to create responsible individuals capable to identify environmental issues, engage in problem solving, and take efficient action. These programs were aimed at audiences of different age and education level, ranging from preschool children, through secondary school students, to parents and non-specialized researchers. In the present communication, we summarize some of these activities, along with their achievements