Everything begins with the first step. The project is totally based on this idea. We think people are like dominos. If one is affected, s/he will probably affect the next person and it will continue this way. As educators, we have decided to break our students' prejudices against other cultures. We know that if they have a limited vision, they cant be citizens of the world. This project makes us open our students' doors : they will see that they shouldn’t believe what they hear about other cultures and they should experience them by just living, seeing, meeting and working together. They will learn to be more tolerant and they will understand that there are always common points behind borders, races and religions. Furthermore, they will understand what being a part of the world means. Being a part of the world involves doing something and taking responsibilities. That's why, as world citizens, we believe that we should deal with one of the biggest problems threatening our planet: Environmental pollution. Many people damage our world in many ways : releasing gases and smoke into the air, damaging soil with chemicals, dropping litter, wasting energy. Our project aims at preserving and restoring the environment and protecting our future. We should provide great resources to promote environmental awareness in our children and give them a clean and bright future. To succeed , firstly, we will create Eco-teams in our schools. Then, we will focus on the environmental problems in both our city and country and then try to figure out the solutions for it. Moreover, we don’t want to limit our actions to our city or country- we will move and learn transnationally. We plan a variety of activities that include both indoor and outdoor tasks. Students will collaborate during lessons within mixed groups. Each partner country offers their specific backgrounds and possibilities to learn new competences, share good practices and encourage our students to become good citizens of Europe. We will use local media, the project website and social media to reach larger crowds. We will also record the environmental changes, by learning and working by river Danube, sea in Turkey. We will organize competitions and plant trees in each partner country in mobilities. Italy will offer great experience sharing in local sustainable farms. There are various group workshops planned in Italy, Romania and Turkey. At the same time, all participants will learn how to create new things with waste fabrics or plastics. they will be informed about saving energy and reducing use of water. We would like to emphasize our final products: a DVD "Green citizens" (also available online in our web-page), 6 language dictionary of eco-therms, ready made classrooms usable presentations with good practices and innovative methodology about activities carried out in various parts in Europe, a photo-book about the realization of project tasks, brochures about alarming issues and their solutions, video stories "Sad and happy heroes of nature"- they all will be of a great help for other interested stakeholders and will be easy to use during teaching process in the educational establishments.This project not only focuses on environmental problems but also the students and the teachers' point of view on education. While doing this project, teachers will motivate themselves to make changes in their teaching methods to create more innovative materials and to develop a more democratic attitude towards the students with the impact of shared European values and this will lead the integration of the school into the European educational system. We strongly believe that the new innovative methods that will guide our students throughout the project will be of great help for learners to estimate the importance of caring for environment and our improved way of life in modern hectic society.As for the students, they will have a chance at practicing their second language during the project. Their motivation will increase with the effect of cross cultural communication and cooperation. The students will communicate in English and develop their use of language at the same time. Furthermore, they will be eager to learn other different languages. They will have an idea about other cultures and education systems so maybe this can affect their choices about where they want to continue their education. In fact the project's results wont be seen only in the environment but also on students and teachers. As for the number of participants, it will be at least 60 in total. The participants will include students and teachers. The impact of the project will be long term. When the project is finished, the students and the teachers will be much more aware of the environmental problems and their solutions. We will keep sharing our experiences with our friends, local people and keep organizing environmental activities with other schools.
Two year school strategic parnership project Everyhting begins with the first step (2016-2018) was a collaboration among 6 European countries- Latvia, Austria, Italy, Romania, Portugal and Turkey. The project focused at one of the most widespread topics nowadays, but which still remains complicated because of its stereotipicalyl complicated therminology and strange forms of presentation at modern schools- environmental issues and human interaction. The aim of the project was to show the young generation at schols that this issue is neither complicated to realize nor boring to tackle at all levels in education. The aim of the team was to create meaningful and innovative activities in order to involve, develop and motivitate the students to be eager to learn more and engage in preserving the nature around. As weall as : 1) strengthening the international cooperation through sharing good teaching/learning practices; 2) facilitate the recognition and validation of knowledge, skills and competences acquired through formal, non-formal and informal learning; 3)to prepare and deploy the education and training of professionals for equity, diversity and inclusion challenges in the learning environment; 4) to encourage active citizenship and entrepreneurship (including social entrepreneurship), jointly carried out by two or more groups of young people from different countries. 5) to rise awareness of environmental issues and develop innovative approaches in learning about this topic. The project parners are schools of general education, including one private educational establishment, and vacational schools. All these schols share common goals in their development plans and their curriculas, which include topics in the learning process on environmental issues and human interaction. Experience and professional approach from each partner guaranteed a successful outcome of this partnership. During the project there were 3 coordinator meetings (TPM) and 3 LTTs. 1) December 2016, Portugal- meeting of all coordinators in order to discuss the aims and put forward the activities to be done during the project; 2) April 2017, Italy- 1st LTT during which students were involved in international group work for creating dictionary, teachers performed lessons on project issues, trees were planted, practical work in water treatment office, school gardens, national park, greenhouses, participation in the lessons of biology, chemistry, physics, green energy production park, videos for Green Citizens were filmed. 3) September, 2017, Turkey- 2nd LTT during which newly created lessons were performed, students participated in the practical lessons of using recycled materials, learned waste management in Mesut, learned energy saving in big organizations, worked in international groups for creating dictionary, videos for Green Citizens were filmed; 4) March 2018, Austria- 2nd meeting of all coordinators (TPM) in order to analyze the results so far, carried out activities, their success and strenghts, possible changes and future activities; 5) April 2018, Romania- 3rd LTT during which students participated in international conference Global issues with presentations, lessons were performed by international teachers, practical work done in physics, biology, water treatment station was examined and its work principles found out, videos for Green Citizens were filmed. 6) September 2018, Latvia- final meeting of coordinators (TPM)- to analyze the success and possible weaknesses of the project, reflect on the activities carried out during the collaboration, evaluate the achievments and implementation of the project results. During the collaboration the aims were reached successfully and all planned activites done, as well as a number of extra ones were added, additionally, more students were involved than planned originally in the application by using the approved budget means. The activities carried out: 1) lessons plans, presentations and video materials for geography, biology, physics; 2) DVD Green Citizens video clips about environmental awareness; 3) Story and drawing edition Sad and Happy heros of nature 4) 6 language dictionary on ecotherms 5) Nature song 6) Successfuly designed dissemination materials of the activities and results- video clips, brochures were successfully implemented in the school curriculas and programmes, study process at school has been enriched with meaningful and innovative activities that were created during the project partnership. Schools have gained enormous experience in organizing international events, educational staff members have risen their competences to a higher level, school names have gained more popularity in the domestic and international levels. By carrying out all planned and extra activities and responsibilities each school has strenghtened their positions as professional and reliable partners in the school strategic partnership field.