Our Erasmus + KA2 project follows a KA1 we made two years ago with Italian and Turkish partners. At the time we already wanted to develop partnerships with catering schools and agricultural schools in order to create a European network for students. We would like them to be aware of the whole process from production to food consumption and of the way it impacts our lives. Students learning cooking, waiting staff, hotel staff, bakery-pastry, agriculture or agronomy are therefore concerned. The former Erasmus + project aimed also at creating and deepening links and at finding new internship places for our students in different European countries.Moreover, teachers who went to Italy and Turkey in the former E+ KA1 have so much benefited from these mobilities. They have improved their English fluency and they have shared with their partners about pedagogical practices and cultural habits. Human connections have resulted.Our KA2 project is the logical continuation of this European commitment by involving students and making them full-fledged project stakeholders. Thanks to e-Twinning other European partners have joined us and the Agricultural school of St-Paul in La Reunion also wished to participate. The majority of partners is already involved in European projects, though none of them has got any experience of a French overseas department. The vast majority of our students have never been abroad. This project will be a great source of wealth by providing our differences but also the comparison of what is common to us, academically, professionally, culturally and environmentally.Our project is both virtual and physical:* It is to get acquainted with new technologies: email, Skype, Facebook in private groups,* to work together on projects such as:- e-Twinning about professional themes: food, cooking, bakery, pastry, but also cultural ones: eg. what do we cook for Christmas?- sustainable development: creating an organic kitchen garden using permaculture and alternating spices, vegetables and edible flowers wishing to produce enough for the school restaurant in order to enhance student work and make some economy. We will exchange with partners on spices, vegetables and edible flowers used in the culinary arts. Our experience will also benefit from the expertise of both agricultural project school partners. We will use English for all these exchanges but also to name the products of the kitchen garden. We wish students to be aware of the real values of the land and to act in favor of a healthy and sustainable economy.* For students: to do their internships in partner countries in order to acquire other professional skills, cultural knowledge, to improve language skills and fluency, and to be initiated into the language of the host country.* For teachers: to exchange ideas with peers in other education systems and to observe other teaching practices but also develop language skills and fluency and cultural knowledge of the host country. To provide knowledge and pedagogical practices of his country.We wish to deepen the links between the partner institutions and to have a better understanding of our cultural differences in order to be more tolerant and have a mutual feeling of European membership that will help our students to acquire working opportunities overseas.Furthermore we plan to communicate and publicize our project to promote the work of students, educational staffs and institutions involved as well as the European institutions that allow us to carry out Erasmus + projects.
Our Erasmus + KA2 project followed a KA1 we made two years ago with Italian and Turkish partners. At the time we already wanted to develop partnerships with catering schools and agricultural schools in order to create a European network for students. We wished them to be aware of the whole process from production to food consumption and of the way it impacts our lives. Students learning cooking, waiting staff, hotel staff, bakery-pastry, agriculture or agronomy were therefore concerned. The former Erasmus + project aimed also at creating and deepening links and at finding new internship places for our students in different European countries. Moreover, teachers who went to Italy and Turkey in the former E+ KA1 have so much benefited from these mobilities. They have improved their English fluency and they have shared with their partners about pedagogical practices and cultural habits. Human connections have resulted. Our KA2 project was the logical continuation of this European commitment by involving students and making them full-fledged project stakeholders. Thanks to e-Twinning other European partners have joined us and the Agricultural school of St-Paul in La Reunion also wished to participate. The partners were already involved in European projects, though none of them had any experience of a French overseas department. This project was a great opportunity for all of us. Six countries were concerned by this partnership: Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Poland, Turkey and France (Reunion island), the coordinator of the project. In all there were 7 participant schools. We have involved students of several levels of study, professional and technological certificate or Baccalaureate in hotel and agricultural field for France. Ten to twelve levels for the european partners. The project planned a private Facebook group, Skype meetings, an e-Twinning project, the creation of sustainable aromatic or vegetable gardens with edible flowers, internships in the partner schools and in hotels/restaurants. Each of these activities has been carried out by the whole partners. The private Facebook group was very popular and frequently used. It has been much more difficult to carry out Skype meetings and we have been able to plan them for teachers only because of students' schedules and programs. However students communicated a lot with each other on Messenger. On the educational plan they made a pedagogical work on sustainability in growing aromatic herbs and edible flowers. According to the seasons in their respective countries, all the students created school gardens. The partners had in charge to find internship places for the partner students and this has been correctly achieved. It wasn't easy because of the particularites and differences of each country in professional fields and because staffs in hotels and restaurants have a lack of people speaking English. At first the students spent a week in the host school in order to get acquainted together, to learn basic idioms of the host country and to compare their schools. This was a great motivation to speak English. Participants have made important gains as regards linguistic, professional, cultural and human domains. Students acquired a big autonomy and self confidence. This project was a big source of wealth by the contribution of our differences. In the included e-Twinning project, all the partners added the documents, movies and Power Points realised by the participants. We shared a lot with our partners about spices, edible flowers and vegetables in cooking, bakery, pastry but also in health care. In Reunion island the agriculture school and the catering school worked together to create the school garden. The two agriculture schools in France and Turkey worked together and shared their good practices. Participants have improved their level and their fluency in English. Pupils and teachers acquired transverse knowledge such as know how to sand and paint pallets to make gardens for spices or baking pastries in hotels which is very different from baking pastries in a pastry shop. All the partner countries communicated several times about the project in the medias and on the websites. We wished that our students rediscover the real values of the earth and act for a healthy and sustainable economy. We wanted students and teachers to improve their linguistic level and increase their cultural and linguistic knowledge. We wished them to be aware of the great opportunity to be European citizens. These objectives were largely achieved. For the teachers the exchanges with the peers were fruitful. We learnt to cooperate and to work together. The links are so deep that we all want to work on another project together.