This project addresses vocational secondary schools in the fields of maths, sciences and technology through car mechanics and many engineering classes e. g. mechanics, electricity, electronics, computer science for industries, underlying mathematics concepts applied to these technical situations . It also includes culture and humanities classes. It aims involving students and staff in schools in real work towards the following policy priorities: entrepreneurship, ICT and open ressources, multilinguism, young people at risk of earlys school leaving, in service teachers training, European citizenship among students and staff. Many students are tempted to leave school without any qualification because of their lack of interest for the subjects taught there. Since these students clearly prefer to learn by doing this project aims at offering them a real collaborative and transnational teamwork based on a real support, here an electric vehicle. We estimate over the 3 year duration of the project to reach about 500 participants from 3 countries, among which about 50 staff members approximately including about 200 mobilities. This vehicle will be transported physically from project partner school to the other, embodying today's sustainable mobility across boarders. On site it will gain a technical added value also taking culture into account with students collaborative results embedded into it. These are - changes of visual aspects of the vehicle, - mobile telecommunication devices, - changes or refinments of technical properties, - various and numerous embarked interactive documentations on tablets explaining the technology of these changes, - various and numerous embarked interactive documentations on tablets showing cultural insights of historical heritage places from the partner school location As an answer to mobility and global warming issues the shared electrical vehicle provides a support to link this young generation to their roots and history in Europe : this aspect of the project is essential to increase their sense of European citizenship, exploiting local heritage from all partner school regions in their classes, as for example in France, the celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the D day landing in Normandy taken as a support to transnational student teamwork results. This project uses an electrical vehicle as a medium of history in our modern societies and also allowing sustainability of results long after the project duration. Therefore the scope of potential results carried out in interdisciplinary subjects taught in school is very wide since it allows any teacher to include the project into his subject curriculum. In particular, for those students from vocational school, this project aims at increasing their motivation for their understanding of electrical and hybrid vehicles in engineering classes and simultaneously enhancing needs for history, English and native language classes. Student learning mobilities are necessary in transnational teams firstly to add physically into the electric vehicle the new results prepared online prior to the meetings and secondly to test and modify the real functioning of these results. Consequently teachers in transnational teams share pedagogical practices on transnational student teams. Teachers in service training mobilities are necessary to carry out face to face essential steps of ongoing of the project and combine these mobilities with sessions of teachers training conducted by an English speaking expert ingeneer or trainer from car manufacturing companies. First key subject is here all concerning workers' safety on workplace in industries. The results will be easily transferrable to any other school after the project since all schemes, diagrams, software will be open source to allow other teachers in other countries to upgrade them to their needs in their national curriculum and also generate on line communities of transnational students specialising in these subjects, for example on social networks and e-twinning. As a whole this project will contribute to reach a complete transformation into car engineering related fields pedagogy as a direct consequence of modern revolution in new energy and car industries.
« MST + Culture through ecar » is a three year school to school key action 2 Erasmus+ project gathering secondary and vocational schools in car automation and engineering fields from Bulgaria, France and Italy coordinated by the French school. A second title chosen during the first face to face meeting « eDay Car : Sustainable Mobility and Culture » is used for all productions that are presented on the etwinning platform - a base for the collaborative work used throughout the project. In 2014, the French school purchased for the needs of its car automotive classes and labs a real electric vehicle, a Renault Zoé which simultaneously embodies the collaborations in this projet. Participants were students aged from 15 to 19 years old, teachers in the three schools through crosscurricular activities in their vocational fields as well as in maths, sciences, technology, humanities and foreign language classes, also supported by non teaching staff. Work language is English which is a foreign langage to all participants. Many students show a lack of motivation for subjects taught in school and prefer to learn hands on activities. Considering the needs to increase the future generation’s employability in scientific and technological workplaces, teachers want to share good practices with peers to train on embedding international collaboration in their classes. Thus priorities of developping parntnerships between companies and education on one hand and of strenghening the professional profile of teachers on the other hand are targeted in this project. Here the Zoe car is physically transported for each of the six learning events to each partner school about 2000 km apart from each other to allow all partner students and teachers to work on it. Learning activities started online on etwinning then continued during learning events with the car as a central element embodying sustainable mobility. Finally all collaborative documents reached in various school subjects were published on etwinning and also available in the car itself in embarked tablets. Some technical activities can be seen directly on the car. - Car body painting students follow choices made by project students through a drawing competition : plain at the start, the Zoé car shows in its visual aspect the three countries collaborating on sustainable mobility issues. - This car was equipped with air pollution detectors on the roof to make measurements of various air pollution indicators when the car was driven all the way from France to the south of Italy or to Bulgaria. This detector was run by a solar pannel fixed on the roof. In computer science classes these measurements were used to draw an interactive map showing air pollution datas on the way from the North West of France to the South of Italy. In math classes these measurements were then worked for statistics and final conclusions increasing students’ awareness for climate changes issues. The detector itself is produced by the Italian National Research Centre as a prototype and contributed to further technological improvements. - Once transported on a truck to reach the partner school because of low autonomy the Zoe car could be driven itself all the way to Italy experiencing a new prototype trailer turning the electric vehicle into an hybrid vehicle with long autonomy which is provided by a French company "epTender "itself supported by the EU. - During its stay in each country the car displayed logos of local companies involved in the project. In fact the Zoé car was a part of communication events in the city centres promoting the students and teachers’s collaborations to the local population. - The car now displays QR codes which lead to technical documentations and cultural documentations produced during the activities when you flash on them with a smartphone. - Embarked tablets contain final documents produced together in subjects taught in school ranking from English as foreign langage to culture with traditional dances through mathematics. The results are numerous documents in videos, posters, powerpoint presentations, video conferences, written reports of transnational teachers meetings. What teachers and schools improved was new methods of how to organise and lead student learning events in mobilities and to organise collaborative activities online in various subjects taught in school. This project had a significant impact on more than 600 students and 100 teachers in three years. As a proof of their European citizenship and digital competences these students mention their participation in their resume when applying for a first job or entering universities right after finishing secondary or vocational school. As for teachers they gained motivation to improve their foreign langage skills in English in their subject so that they are be able to collaborate in international projects. On the long run each partner school opens up its international scope.