Project ELASTIC - Innovation through the textile industry in the past, present and future The main objective of this project is to make participants understand the economic, social, political, environmental and cultural changes connected with the rise and fall of the textile industries in their respective regions and to make them aware how significant the impact of these developments has been on the development of their communities as a whole up to the present. The exchange with the partner schools enables them to get an even broader perspective on these developments and make them see similarities, differences and interdependent relationships throughout Europe and even on the global scale. Work on the project will be divided into different subtopics, thus enabling students to approach the subject in different ways. Research will have to be done in the fields of general economic, technological, environmental, social, political, cultural as well as local history. Former production sites will be visited, if possible, former production methods will be studied on site as well as investigating the new ways the former production facilities are used at present. Students will prepare presentations and have the chance to work creatively by preparing fashion shows, for example. The main product of the project will be a web app which documents the knowledge achieved during the project and will make it available not only to the students and the staff of their respective schools, but also to their communities and for local tourism purposes as well.
Project ELASTIC - Innovation through the textile industry in the past, present and future – How the textile industry has changed our regions The main objective of this project was to make participants understand the economic, social, political, environmental and cultural changes connected with the rise and fall of the textile industries in their respective regions in Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic and to make them aware of how significant the impact of these changes has been on the development of their communities up to the present. There were between seven and ten students in each team. The exchange with the partner schools’ teams via the etwinning platform and visits enabled them to get a broader perspective on these developments and made them see similarities, differences and interdependent relationships throughout Europe and even on the global scale. Work on the project was divided into different subtopics, thus enabling students to approach the subject in different ways. Research was done in the fields of general economic, technological, environmental, social, political, cultural as well as local history. Former textile production sites were visited, former production methods studied on site and the impact of structural change was investigated. Students documented the results of their work in many different ways by writing texts, translating and making audio versions of them, taking photographs of the objects and sites, preparing presentations and show cases, making films, collages and fashion shows, designing flyers or even composing the background music of the audio texts. The main common product of the project was an app programmed by students documenting the knowledge achieved during the project. This app (available as a web app (elastic-app.eu) as well as in Play Store or App Store (Project Elastic)) was not only designed for the use of students participating in the project but also their fellow students and, of course, for local tourism purposes as well. It provides a self-guided tour via smartphone of the former production sites of the textile industry including information on their present use.