YEMA - Young Europeans on the move by active learning and teaching is a project based on the exchange of innovative teaching and learning methods to facilitate our students' approach to natural sciences and mathematics. With the implementation of YEMA we want to produce a change by bringing action and movement into the classrooms of our schools. On the one hand the change is aiming at all participants' approaches towards learning and teaching and on the other hand it is aiming at their attitude towards their environment in a local, regional and European context. With this project we want to achieve the following objectives: - raising our students' interest in mathematics and sciences- raising their environmental awareness regarding the resources soil, water, air- increasing awareness of healthy lifestyle and sustainable behaviour - promoting ICT skills in everyday school activities- implementing interdisciplinar teaching (open classroom)- gaining well-founded knwoldge about jobs/vocational training in the environmental sector- improvement of English language and presentation skills For us, teachers YEMA provides a change, too as we gain new experiences in teaching methods . Each school brings its own expert method into the project: Inquiry based learning and tutoring (Latvia), learning with models and school outside (Slovenia), free activity, project-based learning (Germany), activity-oriented teaching (Portugal and Poland). Working in international teams also adds new perspectives to our work and trains our intercultural abilities. Our core target group are students of comprehensive schools aged 11/12 to 14/15. They will be involved in all project activities and their evolution will be monitored during the project and after, until their school leave. Among teachers it's especially mathematics and science teachers who are involved but also teachers of technology, consumer science and of course languages. Parents play an important role in the project. They are also involved in activities, like gardening and vocational orientation . Local businesses and administration (agency for environment, consumer advice centre) are addressed as they are partners in the teaching and learning activities. We are taking our pupils on an expedition exploring first the soil in terms of geology, then the air with respect to man's influence on climate change and finally water, where everything comes from. As we need food during our journey, we plant a schoolgarden and learn about the importance of seasonal and regional products. Water is one of our most precious resources. We explore it on kayaks, to see where our drinking water comes from and where the waste is going to. We talk to experts and find out about new professions dealing with soil, water and air.We build a wind turbine to find out, how it works. We experiment with combustion cell and build a weather station to observe the rain, wind and temperatures which are important for our plants. We learn how to document and report our results on a digital platform improving our language and ICT Our methods of exploring are those mentioned above and CLIL methods for producing the video report. The arrangements to train and assess this new approach in teaching and learning are six project weeks , four transnational teaching and learning activities and two project meetings. During project weeks pupils will work in teams or on their own investigating topics such as water, rocks, land features, weather, food and ecology. They will work actively to gather and collect scientific information and results on these topics thus enhancing environmental understanding and awareness. Each project week also provides a link to vocational training. Pupils gain profound knowledge of jobs and professions connected to the topic they are investigating. The results of the project weeks will be shared and commented on eTwinning and Yema website.The project results and products, like teaching material, a project tree and a schoolgarden, a weather station and a wind turbine will be maintained and passed on to following pupils, promoting an active attitude towards learning and the evironment. The schools as participating institutions will experience an increase in their reputation as they can promote themselves with this project in the local environment , but also on the European stage. They will develop their autonomy, broaden the horizons of students , teachers and parents as they all get involved in the life of the European community . The project will increase intercultural awareness of all participants as they will develop conduct rules for international cooperation. Moreover the project will increase the awareness and confidence of parents on the future of children in a united Europe. The project will enhance international exchange of young people from different countries thus increasing reciprocal understanding and tolerance.
I. The project YEMA , Young European on the move by active learning and teaching, is a strategic schoolpartnership among five schools in Germandy, Latvia, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia. Our goal was to bring more action in school lessons. YEMA started on September 1 2016 and lasted till June 30, 2018. During these 22 months there has been an intense exchange with 24 teachers and about 400 students participating in core activities. II. Our goals With YEMA we intended to: raise our students interest in mathematics and natural sciences raise our students environmental awareness regarding the resources soil, air and water implement cross-curricular teaching improve English skills of all participants III. The partners All partner schools are schools of general education which lead till year 9 or year ten. The Ingolstadt Johann-Michael-Sailer-Schule is a Montessori School and specialist in free activity and project work. Pumpuri Vidusskola in Jurmala is a public school specialised in natural sciences. The Portuguese partner school, Agrupamento de Escolas de Sernancelhe is a public school in a rural area. Healthy lifestyle and healthy food is particularly important to them. Osnovna sola Valentina Vodnika Ljubljana is the largest school of our partnership, their cores being languages, sciences and physical education. The Polish partner, Niepubliczne Gimnazjum w Sarbicach, is the smallest school in a rural area and is specialist in Badminton. Sarbice students are very successful in national and international Badminton competitions. IV. The activities The main activities of the project comprised in six project weeks on particular topics: soil, air, water, climate, plant, seasonal and regional food, three international learning and teaching activities, a short term exchange for teachers and two international project meetings. At the very beginning of the project we also started YEMA on eTwinning. eTwinning was our platform for communicating and publishing. The project week took place simultaneously in all partner schools according to a detailed timetable, which had been sent to all partners at the beginning of the project. During these weeks we implemented and trained the methods from our YEMA Toolbox: Inquiry based teaching, Learning with models, Free activity and School Outside. On this purpose we organized activities like experiments, field trips and presentations. All activities were documented in photos, video reports, PowerPointPresentations and exchanged via eTwinning. We met for international teaching and learning activities in Ljubljana in December 2016 and in Sernanchelhe/Portugal in May 2017. We were introduced to the schools, participated at lessons and made experiments. In Ljubljana we learned how to implement School Outside in every day school life. The most impressive experience we had in Portugal was the village festival. We were part of the community and learned how the Portuguese celebrated their village: with stunning hospitality, loads of traditional food, traditional music and dance. The last short term student exchange was in Sarbice/Poland in April 2018. We met to review and evaluate the activities of the project weeks and to celebrate the Final YEMA Festival and the YEMA Badminton Cup. We met for job shadowing in Jurmala, in October 2017. We were nine teachers as guests of our Latvian partner school and had an intense exchange about teaching methods, particularly IBL - Inquiry Based Learning. We also took part in a workshop on this topic at Riga University, had an interesting field trip to the marshes and practiced team teaching. The international project meetings took place at the coordinating school in Ingolstadt/Germany, at the beginning and in the end of the project. The first meeting was used for organizing matters, such as timetable, activities and introducing the YEMA methods. Slovenian, Latvian and German teams had prepared presentations and workshops to introduce the methods to their partners. Furthermore we had an eTwinning workshop, so that each partner was familiar with the platform. Die beiden internationalen Projekttreffen fanden zu Projektbeginn und -ende an der koordinierenden Schule in Ingolstadt statt. The second meeting in June 2018 had been organized to evaluate the entire project, to prepare the final report and agree upon the outlook of the project. V. Results and Effect of the project One of the most important long term results are the friendships we made during the project. Teachers and students have improved their English and were familiarized with new teaching and learning methods. We produced teaching material such as CLIL work sheets, videos and quizzes, which are available on eTwinning. Five project trees planted in each partner school and five YEMA school gardens will be looked after by future generations of students reminding them of the project. Dissemination of project results among our communities created awareness of European identity.