FAST, or how Food And Sustainability Thrive. FAST opens up the world of science, citizenship and entrepreneurship to students of lower and upper secondary schools in seven countries of Europe. It is unique as it allows students (coached by a transnational team of teachers) to formulate their own research topic within the overall topic. During the prior personal meetings between teachers, heads of school and the first communication with students, each school has determined a common research topic to be discussed and researched in a bilateral meeting. These topics come together in the horizontal objectives of “Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective”, “Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era” and “Sustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education and training”.In order to get a broad scope of research each school will select a class that will be teamed up with a Dutch class (year 3). Together they will execute PHASE 1 of the research during a physical exchange. PHASE 2 of the research will be finalized during the project-meeting in the Netherlands.The main language is English and in all schools the English language teachers participate actively in the management of this project. In two schools, CLIL is a common use. The other schools have indicated that they want to 'integrate language learning' in the content lessons. The experienced teachers will stimulate other colleagues to use CLIL activities and methodology in their projects so the students will be able to increase their language level culminating in an assessment of themselves with the Europass language portfolio and use that as an additional supplement to their European Portfolio (in NL: plus-form) or International Supplement to their final diploma in their own country. In order to make the priority of 'open and innovative education' possible, it is necessary to embed it in the digital world. The ICT skills are incorporated in all stages of this project. It is relevant for basic communication and interaction. During the project the students will also (learn to) work with specific scientific programs (e.g. programming weather stations with small Arduino computers) in order to collect relevant data (internationally). The direct contact to the professional business community in the regions helps the students to realize that what they learn is real and currently innovative and therefore enhances their entrepreneurial way of thinking.The results of the students' research will be used and applied in the production process, if possible, by the companies that are involved in the whole project. Sustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education and training, proofs to be the in line with the wishes of all partners. They do not want to create a project that will last for one year (although the subsidy is applied for one year) but they want to enhance their teaching skills, project work and make an extra step towards learning in the 21st century where the students needs the 21st century skills. The participating schools want to contribute to other teachers, learning platforms and (in- and out) school networks and professional (international) teachers networks. The learning outcomes will find a place in the curricula of science, ICT and subject integrated reseach projects. The outcomes of the teachers tasks (video's, instructions etc) will be part of the on-going learning cycle of teachers in for instance the Netherlands and as case study in the Academic Research School and Academic Teacher Training in-school (in NL). Partners will be invited as well. The results of the students' research will be used and applied in the production process, if possible, by the companies that are involved in the whole project.
FAST, or how Food And Sustainability Thrive. FAST opened up the world of science, citizenship and entrepreneurship to students of lower and upper secondary schools in seven countries of Europe: Slovenia, Italy, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Portugal and The Netherlands. It was unique as it allowed students (coached by a transnational team of teachers) to formulate their own research topic within the overall topic. During the prior meetings (personal or in some occasions via e-mail) between teachers, heads of school and the first communication with students, each school determined a common research topic to be discussed and researched in a bilateral meeting. The students chose the topics: eco-farming of fruit (SI-NL), sustainable livestock farming (DK-NL), water-processing (ES-NL), influence of salt on food conservation (PT-NL), influence of weather (IT-NL), ecology and Earth-day (PL-NL) and how to reduce the waste of food (NL). Objectives The work developed by the teams, according to the research topics previously chosen, was planned to meet the horizontal objectives: “Improve achievement in relevant and high-level basic and transversal competences in a lifelong learning perspective”, “Open and innovative education, training and youth work, embedded in the digital era” and “Sustainable investment, performance and efficiency in education and training”. All teachers involved orientated the students work in the different tasks using the teaching techniques and strategies they thought would encourage and motivate the students to know more about their topic subjects of the FAST project. Innovative, the students were given autonomy to do their own research departing from guidelines given by the teachers. They were asked to search for information in the school library, the internet or by contacting professionals linked to their research areas to collect direct information. The teachers shared experiences in the teaching strategies between all countries and noticed that they could easily transfer teaching approaches in their own research instructions. The cooperative work of teachers of different school subjects in this common project is a good example of how to maintain a life long learning process. Innovative teaching - Main activities In order to get a broad scope of research, each school selected a class that was teamed up with a Dutch class (year 3). Together they executed PHASE 1 of the research during a physical exchange. PHASE 2 of the research was finalized during the project-meeting in the Netherlands.The main project language was English and in all schools the English language teachers participated actively in the management of this project. In most countries, the students learned new content words in English (CLIL) so cooperation on activities of the project became easier. During the teachers meeting in 2016, all teachers agreed to give the students (extra) language information about sustainability and food. Due to the age differences between the students, all students were informed about Europass and the European Language portfolio, but they were allowed to choose to evaluate themselves and use the outcomes in their personal curriculum vitae. All students can use the project certificate as part of their Elicit portfolio, Europass or school-own certificates. In order to make the priority of 'open and innovative education' possible, it was necessary to embed FAST in the digital world. The ICT skills were incorporated in all stages of this project. ICT was relevant for basis communication, interaction and research. During the project several students also learned to work with specific scientific programs (e.g. programming weather stations with small Arduino computers) in order to collect relevant data internationally. The direct contact to the professional business community in the regions helped the students to realize that what they learned was real and currently innovative and therefore enhanced their entrepreneurial way of thinking. See http://sites.google.com/zwijsencollege.org/fast Teachers - life long learning Major goals of the project were to enhance teaching skills and project work and make an extra step towards learning in the 21st century where students need specific 21st century skills. The participating schools contributed to teacher training platforms and school networks, as well as in some cases to professional (international) teachers' networks. Learning outcomes of the project and transversal teaching skills have been shared with colleague teachers at each partner school. They were encouraged to integrate them into their teaching practice, especially in research projects and in opening ways of involving students in sustainability, ecology, water etc. The outcomes of the teachers tasks and of the students research (videos, assessment materials etc.) have become part of the on-going learning cycle of teachers and students belonging to the network of schools involved in the project.