Looking at Europe's present situation we felt the need to deal with the occuring developement concerning the continuous flow of refugees and immigrants who try to make a new living in Europe. Our aim as teachers is to sensibilize our students towards understanding people coming from different cultural backgrounds against the tendency of a mentality to build fences as a final solution to the current problem. Hate and seperation doesn't contribute to a unified Europe whereas information and knowledge will lead to sustainable solutions.The main objecitive of our project to educate our students towards a multiculural awareness and creating a high empathy towards people who are from different ethnic communities. This is the only way to establish a more humanitarian society in the close future and tearing down fences instead of building them up. Our common foreign language (English) helps us to express ourselves to our partners and additionally the use of electronic and social media accomplish this task.Most of our students of different levels and a half of the teaching staff will be involved in the project to ensure a diversitiy of skills, ideas and knowledge. Different humanitarian organizations (Caritas, Volkshilfe) will enable us to get in contact with real life situations. Our local tourist association will support the exchange of information of regional life and background.We start with introductory activities via riddles, photos, blogs, videos and etwinning activities. We create quizzes about customs and geography of our countries as well as e-books on subjects like ancestors and family histories with the main emphasis on where the families originally came from. We have also planned to interview refugees and immigrants from our local area to add their life experiences to our e-book.In some areas the students work on their own and research in the internet, find out about their own families through interviewing family members and make notes to create the e-book with the help of the teachers. The teachers advise the students how to go about and help them to impove their ongoing results. The teachers provide extra information on certain topics which can be delegated to finish in groupwork.All the knowledge our students acquire during the project will help them to become open and self-determined European citizens so they create a common cultural identity. Through contacts within Europe our institutions provide the possibility as a potential model of an integrated multi-european school.
Looking at Europe's present situation we felt the need to deal with the occurring development concerning the continuous flow of refugees and immigrants who try to make a new living in Europe. Our aim as teachers was to sensitize our students towards understanding people coming from different cultural backgrounds against the tendency of a mentality to build fences as a final solution to the current problem. Hate and separation doesn't contribute to a unified Europe whereas information and knowledge will lead to sustainable solutions.The main objective of our project was to educate our students towards a multicultural awareness and creating a high empathy towards people who are from different ethnic communities. This is the only way to establish a more humanitarian society in the close future and tearing down fences instead of building them up. Our common foreign language (English) helped us to express ourselves to our partners and additionally the use of electronic and social media accomplished this task. Most of our students were of different levels and half of the teaching staff was involved in the project to ensure a diversity of skills, ideas and knowledge. Different humanitarian organizations (Caritas, Volkshilfe) enabled us to get in contact with real life situations. Our local tourist association supported the exchange of information of regional life and background.We started with introductory activities via riddles, photos, blogs, videos and etwinning activities. We created quizzes about customs and geography of our countries as well as padlets and postcards on subjects like ancestors and family histories with the main emphasis on where the families originally came from. We also interviewed refugees and immigrants from our local area. In some areas the students worked on their own and researched in the internet, found out about their own families through interviewing family members and made notes to create the padlets with the help of the teachers. The teachers advised the students how to go about and helped them to improve their ongoing results. The teachers provided extra information on certain topics which was delegated to finish in groupwork. All the knowledge our students acquired during the project helped them to become open and self-determined European citizens so they can create a common cultural identity. Through contacts within Europe our institutions provided the possibility as a potential model of an integrated multi-european school.