The partnership involves 8 european primary school from Spain, Italy, Croatia, Greece , France, Poland, Romania, Spain,Turkey and students aged from 4 to 13. The project aims to develop the scientific and digital competences and the awareness of the vital importance of the Four Natural Elements for our life and induces the awareness of what are the effects of culture on the development of environmental issues and which different answers were given by European Countries to the problems like pollution and safeguard of enviroments and their resources . The project will guide the students to look carefully at everything around us from different points of view and how is important to live in harmony with Nature. Furthermore the project helps us to involve young students and teachers in carrying out pratical scientific investigation and demostrations and we want to develop scientific attitudes - curiosity, asking questions, seeking answers, working through problems and arriving at conclusions and positive attitudes towards science essential for living in a technological and scientific world. Students will make experiments and filming them. Helped by teachers they will manage a scientific video Channel where all experiments will be published in their language and subtitled in english. Students will have a collaborative reading and writing and these activities will give them the possibility to discover a wide range of literature as legend and stories about the four natural elements, they compare opinion and improve their spoken and written language both in english and mother tougue. Students will make tools according to the element investigate: a sundial, a rain collector, an herbarium , a hot hair booloon as part of their technological skills.Students will use a wide range of digital tools both to communicate and to work together.Planned elements will also encourage children to express feelings and emotions in a supportive environment and they develop valuable skills, such as generating and testing ideas, gathering and making sense of evidence, developing possible solutions, and evaluating processes and outcomes.There are many curriculum links in this project: geography, history, visual arts, ICT, language,literature and science and this will help us to integrate the project into the lessons and make CLIL activities. Teachers will reflect and make research of application of CLIL methodology at primary level. The mobilities of teachers and students are the heart of the project. Pupils will become acquainted with foreign languages as they have the opportunities to interact with others from Europe to play together and also during the meeting each school will give them possibility to make a scientific experiment all together and develop part of the activities sharing ideas and supporting each others.This kind of collaboration will enlarge the eTwinning virtual collaboration that students and teachers carry out during the life of the project and will be an important moment to know the local culture and habits.The project provides a platform that motivates and enthuses children to continue to learn. It gives a meaningful context to the collaboration amongst the countries ensuring a much greater sense of achievement.The project is needed to expand the horizons of the children participating in it and give them a European identity. By developing learning environments that allow students to develop skills through the use of networks, joint reflection and cooperation among European students, teachers and parents, will enhance the promotion and innovation of best practices. We believe that project will be stimulating and challenging for students, staff,parents and the wider community, by providing the opportunity to learn about other countries and other ways of living. We will have the opportunity to share cultures and knowledge which is of vital importance as we live in a global world where frontiers are becoming less obvious, but we can, and should, still retain an appreciation and value of our individual identity.
Our project is the result of collaboration and previous work from 8 countries to set up a model of strategic partnership for the exchange of best practice among students and teachers focused on the need to work in students the recognition and vital importance to the issues associated with the environmental friendliness as awareness in their care and interaction assessing the effects on it as well as the appropriate and proper use of natural resources found in different countries. In this way, we create a civic culture at European level of respect for the environment with common areas of action. As for the goals around which has turned the project encompasses different approaches: 1. Establish a network of cooperative work among students and teachers from different countries to enrich through common development proposals related to environmental content. 2. Encourage students and teachers to practice scientific attitudes related to research and demonstration of results where elements such as curiosity, searching and gathering information, asking questions and hypotheses, searching for answers, network teamwork, become essential for dealing with an environment in which scientific and technological components are present elements. 3. Reflect on how each country has shaped its culture and citizenship influence and interaction with nature and natural resources. 4. To develop in students a number of vital skills for their comprehensive training as a European citizen and to act accordingly in different countries with a responsible attitude towards the environment. 5. A level of education has sought to develop students and teaching skills such as science and technology, digital, cultural, linguistic, environmental, learning to learn, all through the methodologies used in different activities such as CLIL, scientific and STEAM method, introducing the Arts subject. 6. Involve and engage all members of the Educational Community in the respective schools so that in many of the activities, their participation has been remarkable. As I mentioned above, the 8 countries that made up the strategic partnership in the application form was approved, just 7 signed the grant agreement, leaving out Turkey for political reasons, being informed the Spanish National Agency in a timely manner. The great competence and effectiveness of teamwork between different countries have been conditioned by a number of key elements. One corresponds to the work in a previous Comenius project from four countries that make up our association: Italy, Greece, Croatia, and Poland, incorporating us through the eTwinning platform and common contacts between European teachers. Secondly, the schools of this project have very strong skills profiles in various skills for the project we have developed. To this experience in previous European projects is added, and the application of methodologies such as CLIL in the respective centers. The methodology has greatly marked the development of much of the activities. Continuing education and educational policy in different centers have allowed us to have formed in the development of the project and jointly implemented educational innovation through the STEAM methodology. If we add that the coordinators of countries such as Croatia, Italy, and Romania were ambassadors etwinning, resulting in an association with a strong competence profile. Concerning the results and impact achieved, focusing our last transnational meeting TM from 27 to 29 May 2019 in the city of Tecuci (Romania) to the development of an international conference in which each center could explain the results and impact achieved in different schools. The results are platform presentations there were exposed by the different countries. To highlight the methodological change in teaching science subject through CLIL and STEAM part of program documents themselves and in the School Curriculum at the respective centers. Another highlight has been the interest and the motivation of students toward the study of environmental issues as reflected in the various assessments made within the project website: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/24535/home On the other hand, there has been a campaign to publicize the work done not only locally but also regionally and nationally through the digital press in different countries. Later we delve into the results and impact in more detail.