Chinese proverb says: 'A butterfly that flutters its wings causes a hurricane on the other side of the world'. That vision of the chaos shows the cause-and-effect relationship, which is well-observed in all areas of our life. The project entitled 'The Butterfly Effect' aims at showing our students that the development of the world is influenced by different ideas, inventions, actions that arise from curiosity, the need to solve a problem . It also proves that every action taken up has a meaning, and staying passive is not a good solution. We will think about what every person in the world is able to do; not just the big names who influenced the development of the world. Today those people are among the pantheon of personalities and they belong to the European and world heritage. Some of them did not realize the importance of their past activities. We will take into account contemporary events, anti-crisis measures, the division of the world's wealth, to think about what we can do in the environment in which the entity has little potential. Thus, even the smallest of our action, our protest, can form the nucleus of a significant change. The fact of participating in a project with such a large scale, establishing relationships with partners of different nationalities, exchange of experiences and views on the world, makes the project's participants aware that we all are inhabitants of Europe, of the world, and that our little "flutter of wings" does not remain unanswered and unnoticed.
General Facts: The project “L´EFFET PAPILLON“ is a collaboration of schools from 7 European countries (Bulgaria, France, Italy, Macedonia, Poland, Spain and Germany) over a period of 3 years (September 2015 – August 2018). As the title of the project suggests, small actions can start a chain reaction and have big and enduring effects. We wanted to make students aware that everyone of us can actively contribute to the shaping of our world, can influence its development and work towards desired changes. Our project was originally conceived as a language project: by improving the level of our students' foreign language skills we tried to open their minds to the world and promote cooperation among European states. By making young people aware of their own cultural background, by making them experience, understand, respect and appreciate the traditions and values of other European nations we wanted to pave the way for the formation of a wider, global identity beyond national borders in which the diversity of all these cultures converges. In terms of content, our work dealt with issues that seemed equally relevant in all participating countries. The six semester topics we worked on were 1. Education 2. Human rights 3. Gender equality 4. Our environment 5. Communication and good practices 6. Healthy living. Objectives: Our objectives were multilingualism, mainly the use of English and French as our designated project languages, but during the course of the project all languages of the partners were used to record and to present national results. After all our aim was not perfect mastery of the language, but mutual understanding and communication. Another objective was the application and practice of new communication technologies, offering both students and teachers the opportunity to develop their skills in this field. Furthermore the teachers should have the opportunity to benefit from demonstrations of their collegues` teaching methods during visits to the partner schools and thus be able to expand their own repertoire in order to improve the quality of teaching. Last but not least we wanted our students to move a little bit forward in the process of fully comprehending the importance of a European citizenship, make them aware and proud of our democratic values, encourage their respect and tolerance for other cultures and foster cooperation and solidarity. Activities: After investigating the situation (see above: Education, Human Rights, Gender equality…) in their own countries, the students documented and summarized their findings in various forms, producing posters, ppts, videos, works of art, calenders and a six-volume online magazine documenting the course of the whole project. They compared their results to the presentations of the other national teams and even beyond Europe and thus understood their own privileged situation. It became obvious that even today education or elementary human rights can still not be guaranteed for people in other parts of the world or that equal rights for men and women, even within Europe, have not yet been fully implemented. Dealing with topics such as environmental protection or healthy living, it was enriching and instructive to see what action is being taken in other countries. We tried to create a problem awareness among the pupils and learned that other European countries are equally working on the solution of these issues, perhaps with different approaches and methods. There were solidarity actions carried out in all partner schools: sales or collection campaigns, athletic or artistic contributions were made, the proceeds benefitting different persons or institutions, proving the willingness of the participants to share their wealth. Finally the visits in our partner cities, the comparison of traditions and values and the exchange of views in the schools, the establishing of personal relationships with other young people and their families, have made the students and teachers experience themselves and others participants as actively involved citizens of Europe, working in a cooperation of many partners on a common goal. Dissemination: On a local level, photos/products/results were continually presented to the school community in the Erasmus corners (at school parties, open-door days, Europe days, solidarity action days…) Regional dissemination was achieved by articles in the regional newspapers, f. ex. on the occasion of the visits to mayors and local administrations or in solidarity actions, nationwide by the documentations of visits and work in the online-magazines, on the school homepages and on e-twinning, results of all countries on the website https://leffetpapillon2015.wixsite.com/alcarriabaja