The ECO project - Environment Curiosity as an Opportunity - is a strategic partnership of six schools from Germany, The Netherlands, UK, Italy and Spain that directly addresses two flagships initiatives of Europe 2020 strategy: Youth on the move and an agenda for new skills and jobs but it also responds to other two flagships: Innovation Union and Resource Efficient Europe. It has been developed as a response to the concern about the global climate change and its negative impact on teenagers. Their attitudes towards environmental issues often fail to translate into lifestyle changes and actions at a personal level as their understanding is superficial, personal concern is relatively low and susceptible to be overwhelmed. Fear is often the main message of climate change communication and teenagers and their families feel disempowered. The main goal of ECO is to be the catalyst needed to galvanize our students to take action to reduce the causes and take steps to prepare for the changes which are coming. Students will be exposed to environmental problems related to their personal context in order to create learning experiences that are relevant and meaningful for them and will connect personal and world resources assuring they approach the challenge issue of climate change as an opportunity. This new perspective will raise concern and a positive attitude and elicit active engagement to be effective . The multicultural scenario in each school and in the partnership will enrich the shift to intercultural education and curriculum within a European dimension.The project is addressed to 900 secondary school students aged 15-18 who will work collaboratively via eTwinning and Google Drive. In addition, the six project partners will all be working with a range of local and regional stakeholders meaning that there will be a very large number of indirect participants.Activities: In this two-year project students will be the main protagonists of their learning and teachers will guide and provide scaffolding support face to face and through technology.They will analyse, compare and take actions related to efficient energy, climate change, the European consumption family portrait and sustainable development. They will organize workshops to present their proposals, take part in several competitions: project logo, Eco product and its advertising campaign and two challenge tasks to be agreed by the students themselves. They will also produce other outcomes such as infographics, ICT presentations, documentaries among others. Teachers within interdisciplinary and active teaching methods will create lesson plans that together with the students’ outcomes will be available to other schools on the ECO website.The methodology to be used in carrying out the project would follow the lifecycle plan: needs analysis, planning, implementation , control and closure. This will enable all the participants to notice where and when problems may arise. We will also follow a collaborative participatory approach that guarantees participant’s commitment and the project relevance and sustainability incorporating the perspectives of different stakeholders. The dissemination of the project is essential to reach families and local communities, and larger numbers of teachers but it is especially relevant to motivate students and teachers by breaking down the classroom walls and linking the project and what is done at school to real life.Some of the skills as learning outcomes expected to be acquired by the participants are:1. Acquisition of lifelong learning skills as they will learn to learn and will gain self-esteem.2.Development of culturally literate European citizens open to multiculturalism and multilingualism.3.Gain a real sense of the value of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) and learn how to adapt in an evolving world.4.Improvement of students and teachers’ collaborative skills in constructing knowledge and a European learning community.5.Improvement of the foreign language6.Implementation of more relevant and internationalized curriculum through effective ICT (Information and Communications Technology) implementation.Some of the potential longer term benefits will be :1. the shift to new learning and teaching practises that will provide a more tailored education for every learner.2. the students’, teachers’ and local communities’ commitment to environmental sustainability.3. The building of a European learning community at transnational level to support the concept of human sustainability and create an effective network of information, advice and guidance. 4. The Improvement of students’ and teachers’ digital competence5. The contribution to the advancement of science teaching and a science closer to society within the EU. All in all, ECO will promote a motivating atmosphere that will enhance the quality of the six participating schools and will lead to innovative chan
The project is a natural follow-up to the YES-‘Young-European-Scientists’ Comenius project which involved 5 out of the 6 starter partners: Pieralli, Marianum, Allgäu, Giordano Bruno and Sant Quirze.Science subjects and science teachers together with English teachers played a key role in the whole project. The European Union has defined climate change and energy sustainability as one of the five major 2020 targets.The EU also acknowledges that responsibility for action needs to be shouldered in a joint effort that also includes the individual citizen.Our project Environment Curiosity as an Opportunity-ECO-stemmed precisely from the need to promote positive individual environmental awareness as a first step towards climate adaptation and mitigation and to ensure our students gain the skills and aspirations essential for building a sustainable European future. By embracing interdisciplinary learning across the curriculum, we have enhanced their curiosity which led to change their perspectives and took individual actions. We were a Strategic Partnership involving five secondary schools from different countries that have spotted common needs related to the environmental education of our students and their passive acquiescence. In addition, ECO project also involved an active collaboration with universities, a wide range of experts, private and public companies as well as social, cultural and political associations that deal with the environment in order to promote entrepreneurship. Besides, it provided students with the opportunity to reflect on issues in a collaborative way, online and face to face, using English which is not their mother tongue. Consequently, the experience was useful to reinforce CLIL (integrated language and content learning), teaching and learning practices (Flipped classrooms).Moreover, participants applied their scientific knowledge in lab experiments for the understanding of environmental issues and they also acquired technological and computer science skills, again with the support of external experts. All in all, ECO helped us to build a learning community ready to take actions and plan a sustainable future for Europe and mankind. The ECO project was addressed to a total of 900 15/18 -year-old- students approximately and the topics covered were included in the school curricula especially in Science, Maths, Technology, Arts, History, ICT, Social Sciences as Geography, Economics, Law, Citizenship Education and Foreign Languages. Based on the needs analysis conducted by the five schools, ECO aimed at working in a collaborative way to achieve the following SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely) objectives: 1.Shift the adolescents’ environmental attitudes, beliefs and behaviour towards a more positive and responsible attitude via inquiry-based learning. 2.He lp young citizens to acquire the knowledge and the 21st Century skills in a lifelong learning perspective 3.Help students to succeed in a changing world and strengthen their entrepreneurial skills: critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication 4. Embrace interdisciplinary across the curriculum to support a transfer of learning, especially in STEAM (Science, technology. Engineering, Arts and Maths). This provides a more relevant curriculum to the students and enables them to see the links between what they learn in school and what they will be doing in the future fostering self-confidence and entrepreneurship. 5.Update teaching methods fostering collaborative work, creating opportunities for networking with colleagues, promoting learning by doing and effective ICT implementation. 6.Shift to intercultural education and curriculum within a European dimension 7. Acquire lifelong learning skills and self-esteem. 8. Develop culturally literate European citizens open to multiculturalism and multilingualism. 9. Gain a real sense of the value of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths) and learn how to adapt in an evolving world. 10. Improve students and teachers’ collaborative skills in constructing knowledge and a European learning community. 11Improve students and teachers language skills and digital competence. 12.Implement more relevant and internationalized curriculum through effective ICT (Information and Communication) The impact and sustainability of our project consist of an excellent cross-curricular AICLE lessons based on STEAM, documentaries to raise awareness of climate change, posters, presentations and blogs, all of them available to be used in the future. On the other hand, communicative and ICT skills in a foreign language and the use of social media and other digital tools of teachers and students were obviously improved. Finally, a better knowledge of other cultures was also achieved, ECO changed our perception of the European Union thanks to the people directly involved in the project. We have two dissemination chanels: Ecoweb and Etwinning.