Global change in climate and biodiversity – which effects does it have and how can it be countered? As this change affects different regions in different ways , this project involves schools that are located in climatically and geographically diverse regions: Tenerife and Martinique, geographically belonging to Africa and America, with a plenitude of endemic species, a rural town in Southern Germany, a big city (Budapest) and, far north, a town by the Baltic Sea in Estonia. By assessing the status quo of the geological and biological situations in these regions it is realized how climate change affects different parts of Europe (and the world) and how each individual can act responsibly and sustainably in order to curb the change or its effects. An important part of the project will be the construction of a motivating app ("SustainApp"). This will be a kind of geocaching combined with a computer game and relate knowledge about environmental issues to the students‘ local environment and everyday lives. Its basic version will be constructed in two international workshops during the first year of the project. At the same time, at each school students (year 9 or 10) will deal with the topic of climate change in their lessons. They identify suitable points of interest (POIs) in their local surroundings which are related to climate change and sustainability and which can be integrated into a route which can be traversed with the help of the app. For each POI, they provide additional information on the topic and a question that needs to be answered. In the second part of the project, all schools will be visited by their international partners. During these visits, the "SustainApp" routes will be traversed by the international groups and various activities related to the topic will be carried out , among them at least one in which the students give an active, "hands-on" contribution to sustainable development. Toward the end of the last meeting (in Germany) the project will be presented to members of the Environment Committee of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The long-lasting effects of the project will be ensured through the implementation of a transnational interdisciplinary spiral curriculum. This includes the traversing of the "SustainApp" route, which can also be used by other schools, as well as a lasting cooperation between the project partners: In form 7 (or 8) students from all schools get to know each other (English lessons). Two years later (year 9 or 10), students have learned a lot about climate change, sustainability and biodiversity. They exchange views and information on these topics with students from the partner schools. On a set day, there is an international debate (on Skype). Furthermore, 2 - 5 students per form (year 9 or 10) become "climate ambassadors". These teach younger students and help to initiate and foster activities that enhance sustainable behaviour in the school society. International contacts make the role of the "climate ambassador" more attractive. Beside raising environmental awareness, our aims are to increase the attractiveness of science subjects, to improve foreign language abilities and skills, also taking into account English as the language of science, the promotion of intercultural competence, European integration, transfer of best practice, better cooperation between teachers and more media competence in the IT sector.
Global change in climate and biodiversity – which effects does it have and how can it be countered? As this change affects different regions in different ways, this project involved schools that are located in climatically and geographically diverse regions: Tenerife and Martinique, geographically belonging to Africa and America, with a plentitude of endemic species, a rural town in Southern Germany, a big city (Budapest) and, far north, a town by the Baltic Sea in Estonia. By assessing the status quo of the geological and biological situations in these regions, we found out how climate change affects different parts of Europe (and the world) and how each individual can act responsibly and sustainably in order to curb the change or its effects. An important part of the project was the construction of a motivating app ("CliMApp"). This is a GPS based, interactive scavenger hunt (a kind of geocaching combined with a multiple choice quiz) and relates knowledge about environmental issues to the students‘ local environment and everyday lives. A first basic version of the app was constructed in two international workshops during the first year of the project and afterwards students and teachers kept improving it until it worked without any problems at every school. At the same time, at each school students and teachers identified points of interest (POIs) in their local surroundings which can be related to the topics of climate change, sustainability and/or biodiversity and integrated them into a route which can be traversed with the help of the app. At each POI, the display of your mobile gives you some information and you are asked a multiple-choice question. All schools were visited by their international partners. During these visits, the "CliMApp" routes were traversed by the international groups and various activities related to the topic were carried out, among them at least one in which the students gave an active, "hands-on" contribution to sustainable development. At the end of the last meeting (in Germany) the project was presented to members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The long-lasting effects of the project are ensured through the implementation of a transnational interdisciplinary spiral curriculum. This includes the traversing of the "CliMApp" route, which can also be used by other schools, as well as a lasting cooperation between the project partners: In form 7 (or 8) students from students from four of the partner schools get to know each other by exchanging information in their English lessons. Two years later (year 9 or 10), students have learned a lot about climate change, sustainability and biodiversity. Each November, they exchange views and information on these topics with students from the partner schools. This includes watching videos about environmental issues in each partner country that were created during the project, asking questions to the partner school students and answering the others’ questions in one-minute-videos. Furthermore, at each school 2 - 5 students per year are appointed "climate ambassadors". These teach younger students an “energy puzzlehunt” established in all schools and help to initiate and foster activities that enhance sustainable behaviour in the school society. We have managed to reach our aims of raising environmental awareness, increasing the attractiveness of science subjects, improving foreign language abilities and skills and of promoting intercultural competence, European integration, transfer of best practice, cooperation between teachers and media competence in the ICT sector. Furthermore, in the course of the project the German and the Estonian partner schools started a process that finally resulted in getting eco-certificates. In the Martinican partner school, which had never taken part in an international project before, the project motivated teachers to start five more Erasmus+ projects.