In the final phase of our previous Comenius project students expressed their hopes and fears concerning unemployment, migration, social exclusion, climate changes and sustainability of their future lives in Europe. This was the incentive to continue to work together with most of the same partners to create a common Youthtopia2020. We decided to apply for a new Erasmus+ project with 6 European partner schools from Bulgaria, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Turkey and a new school from Spain. The main objective of our actual project is to create a better understanding among students and teachers, of the problems nearby future European societies will experience as stated in the Europe 2020 document. We have created a strong link between these five targets stated by the European Commission for Employment, Research and Development, Climate change and energy sustainability, Education and Fighting poverty and social exclusion, by making them the main topics during the six phases of our project. Since these topics can be rather abstract for the pupils, especially at a European level, we want to address these issues in a very practical way. Making the project specific, easily visible and varied, it will attract all kinds of students and it will enhance their motivation because it responds to the need of differentiation in the classroom.We have planned 4 five-day meetings every six months. Every meeting we will take 3 different pupils and 3 teachers of the partner schools. In order to create integrated and deepened understanding of the specific theme, the pupils arrive well prepared with knowledge concerning the subject, instead of complete presentations. During that week they will create in international groups different types of outcomes, exchange ideas, do sports activities and will stay in host families. Contact with the pupils at home is crucial and shall be ensured.We will create a website that functions as a central home page for our project and we will work with a virtual city called Youthtopia2020 on one hand and with a real scale model of it on the other hand. The idea is that each ‘abstract’ topic is represented in a specific building in our Youthtopia2020 society, for example a tangible Job center for the issues concerning the Job market and Employment. Every meeting, some pupils will be constructing a building for the real scale model and other pupils one for the virtual city. Other groups will create a digital outcome, which varies every phase, like a Glog or a Wikipage in order to explain how this building represents their combined views on the specific topic. Inside the buildings of the real scale model, pupils will place a brief paper to explain their ideas to the people who are passing by. A QR-code on every structure will redirect to the digital outputs to make it more interactive. As a final product we will have a virtual city published on our website, explained by the different virtual outcomes and a real scale model with a Youthtopian2020 Constitution, a combined work of all the papers inside. During our last meeting, we will meet some members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, so that pupils can present the final product to them. We will invite the local Europe Direct offices to introduce Europass and Youthpas to all the pupils participating. Tools like Whatsapp, Etwinning, Twinspace, Facebook and other social media will be used intensively as an innovating way to communicate with partners, but also as a new learning platform. The use of these new digital possibilities are crucial to communicate efficiently and smoothly. Dissemination is important during the whole project. We will organize special closing evenings at the end of every meeting to create a platform where everybody can learn from each other. We will invite media, authorities, parents, all the other teachers and students of the school, companies and sports entities. Pupils will then present the outcomes of the specific phase in interaction with the audience. Creating a website with the digital products and the virtual city as well as all the social media used keeps the project accessible also after the end of the project. We will appoint two teachers as Etwinning ambassadors for this project, to make sure that after the project other schools and teachers can profit of it. To inspire and help other teachers, we will place our material and experiences on sites like Digischool, Didactalia, or similar sites in the partner countries.To show the pupils’ ideas of future Europe to a broad public we will use the contacts made during the process to place the real scale model in highly visited buildings, like public libraries, town halls, or at the entrance of the companies that we have worked with. All of this will give a wider dimension to our work, makes our objectives reality, includes all kind of students and teachers and allows us to work on a common future for our European Union.
• Context/background of the project; The project is a logical sequence of our former Erasmus+ project ‘’From different Pasts to a Common Future’’. After focussing on our different pasts we found out that our students had many questions about the European future. What will become of us? Will we still have a job? What will education be like? Will our European future be sustainable for our children? We decided to deal with these important questions in a new project; Youthtopia2020, in which we would come up with a European blueprint for future Europe, constructed bij our students! • Objectives; The main objective was for our students to develop basic and transversal skills.To let them see that the acquired knowledge makes sense. We wanted to acquire this goal by dealing with topics that really matter within Europe. Therefore, the main goal was to let the students (with the help of teachers) find solutions for the problems of future Europe. By using new and innovative matters we wanted to fill the gap between theory and the world they live in. Because students all have different capacities, we find it important to differentiate between the students and offer them different products to work on This implied another objective; the involved teachers should be able to work with all these new teaching methods, so during the project we had to train teachers on the job. Furthermore, we wanted to stimulate our students to become more active European citizens, being able to express themselves on a European scale and about topics that really count in future Europe. The communication with peers from other European countries is important in order to become more fluent in using the English language. After two years more than 2500 people will have been involved in this program. We also wanted to develop a consistent partnership with the participating schools. Therefore, each school also had to bring an extra teacher from the lower classes, in order to spread the European project in the different schools. The idea is to keep working together, also after Youthopia2020. • See 2.1 and 2.2 for the participating organisations; • Description of undertaken main activities; In the four meetings we undertook the following activities; - Information Markets in the hosting schools (instead of the presentations of the Culture Box at the first meeting) - Informal teachers meetings with other teachers (that did not participate in the project) - Students made the following products; video tutorials, a real maquette, but also a digital version of the ideal European city, a Wiki page, a glog, and Youtube-clips about the meetings. - The constitution of Youthtopia 2020, presented at the European Parliament in Strasbourg (See the Manifesto in the Annexes) - At the end of each meeting, students carried out a dissemination- activity in the local town, such as a flash mob or a dance, handing out leaflets of the project and talking to local inhabitants - On the job-training for students and teachers (how to work on the digital city, how to prepare a good blog, etc.) - Expert talks at every meeting - A cultural activity (such as visiting a museum, a city walk, etc) - A cultural party in or outside school (parents of host families bring home-made food and participating teachers and students eat and party together) - At the end of each meeting an evaluation was carried out between participating students and teachers. Purpose; project-evaluations, find points of improvement. - All products were shared via eTwinning, Facebook, the school websites and information letters within the schools. Also, after each meeting, students prepared a youthopia-corner wthin the school, showing photo’s and outcomes of the Youthopia2020-meetings • Results and impact attained; All 4th classes of the Montessori students in The Netherlands (approximately 230 in total) could choose to take part in the special Youthtopia2020- lessons. Also, during the meetings in Bulgaria, France, Spain and The Netherlands, an Information Market was set up in the different schools, where also other students and teachers from the hosting schools could talk to the participating students of Youthtopia2020 and share information about the project. In all hosting countries, local press wrote or transmitted about the project Youthtopia2020. • If relevant, longer-term benefits. The participating teachers have aquired new digital didactical tools in the field, such as working with educational games, the use of blogs and vlogs, digital newspaters, etcetera. Also, the students acquired these digital tools. In The Netherlands, Minecraft is now also used in the history lessons, where students learn how to construct a Greek or Roman city (and digitally walk through them). Furthermore, we also continued working together after the meetings. For example, the history teacher from The Netherlands worked together with the Turkish collegues in a special lesson serie about cultural differences.