'Health education for life" project is responding to the needs of the three regions to develop and improve their educational offer in the area of health education for secondary school students. According to the opinions of the project partners health education is not treated in a proper way in school education systems. In most EU countries in a school curriculum a subject called health education does not exist. Some topics are implemented in other subjects, most often Biology and Physical Education. In the same time teachers, especially in secondary schools, are under pressure of exam results, it is one of the main factors during school evaluation. Therefore health education is formally part of school curriculum but not much time is spent on it. Moreover, because of economic crisis in many countries, there are not any doctors or nurses in schools. According to recent researches done by American Heart Association 20% secondary school students are current smokers, 80% of students do not eat recommended five servings of vegetables and fruit per day, more and more adolescents become pregnant each year, overweight and obesity is a growing problem - approximately 17% of today's youth are overweight. Promoting and establishing healthy behaviours for younger people is more effective and easier than efforts to change unhealthy behaviours already established in adults. A long term objective of the project is the improvement of healthy behaviours among secondary school students in project partner regions. The project also aims at raising the awarness of health education among teachers, students, their parents and local educational authorities. Our Strategic Partnership will undertake activities to improve teachers' competences relating to use of open educational resources (OER) and ICT. Participants of the "Health education for life" project are from local governments, secondary schools and NGOs from Hungary, Poland and Turkey. They are town and district offices' employees, school administrators,teachers and school support staff. There are parents, doctors and nurses among associated NGO members. There will be 60 participants of two short-term joint staff training events, 160 people will take part in two multiplier events. Local government institutions, schools and non - governmental organisations of partner regions are going to investigate the current situation of health education in their regions. The main activities of the project will include the development and implementation of new forms of health education teaching based on the use of the Internet platform. The platform will offer methodological help for teachers who include health education topics as parts of lessons incorporated with other subjects. The project partners from Hungary, Poland and Turkey will also prepare a teaching material "Health education in secondary schools - activity book". It will contain quizzes, games and other activities which enable teachers to use active methods during their lessons. Project participants from partner organisations and from associated partners will be able to improve their teaching skills. There will be two short-term joint staff training events. The first one will focus on preparing its participants to use the Internet platform in an effective way. The other will aim at professional development of teachers in the context of using OER materials prepared during project activities. The project activities will also include workshops (3 in each partner region), conferences (3 in each partner region), publishing 7 issues of a project newsletter and a project website. Three transnational project meetings will help organise the project tasks in an effective way. Partners of the project will use a number of manners to disseminate the results, experiences and products of the Strategic Partnership.
'Health education for life" project responded to the needs of the three regions to develop and improve their educational offer in the area of health education for secondary school students. According to the opinions of the project partners health education is not treated in a proper way in school education systems. In most EU countries in a school curriculum a subject called health education does not exist. Some topics are implemented in other subjects, most often Biology and Physical Education. In the same time teachers, especially in secondary schools, are under pressure of exam results, it is one of the main factors during school evaluation. Therefore health education is formally part of school curriculum but not much time is spent on it. Moreover, because of economic crisis in many countries, there are not any doctors or nurses in schools. According to recent researches done by American Heart Association 20% secondary school students are current smokers, 80% of students do not eat recommended five servings of vegetables and fruit per day, more and more adolescents become pregnant each year, overweight and obesity is a growing problem - approximately 17% of today's youth are overweight. Promoting and establishing healthy behaviours for younger people is more effective and easier than efforts to change unhealthy behaviours already established in adults. A long term objective of the project was the improvement of healthy behaviours among secondary school students in project partner regions. The project also aimed at raising the awarness of health education among teachers, students, their parents and local educational authorities. Our Strategic Partnership undertook activities to improve teachers' competences relating to use of open educational resources (OER) and ICT. Participants of the "Health education for life" project were from local governments, secondary schools and NGOs from Hungary, Poland and Turkey. They were town and district offices' employees, school administrators,teachers and school support staff. There were parents, doctors and nurses among associated NGO members. There were 41 participants of two short-term joint staff training events, 186 people took part in two multiplier events. Local government institutions, schools and non - governmental organisations of partner regions investigated the current situation of health education in their regions. The main activities of the project included the development and implementation of new forms of health education teaching based on the use of the Internet platform. The platform offers methodological help for teachers who include health education topics as parts of lessons incorporated with other subjects. The project partners from Hungary, Poland and Turkey also prepared a teaching material "Health education in secondary schools - activity book". It contains quizzes, games and other activities which enable teachers to use active methods during their lessons. Project participants from partner organisations and from associated partners were able to improve their teaching skills. There were two short-term joint staff training events. The first one which was organized in Turkey focused on preparing its participants to use the Internet platform in an effective way. The other in Hungary aimed at professional development of teachers in the context of using OER materials prepared during project activities as its intellectual result. The project activities also included workshops (3 in each partner region), conferences (3 in each partner region), publishing 6 issues of a project newsletter and a project website. Three transnational project meetings helped to organise the project tasks in an effective way. Partners of the project used a number of manners to disseminate the results, experiences and products of the Strategic Partnership.