The main objective of the project is to establish a fluent communication channel between the school and real life. We teach subjects at the classroom that students rarely link to their daily reality and this leads to demotivation and early school dropping. By developing this project, which combines innovative and multidisciplinary approaches, we aim to show the students a shortcut between those two essential elements, to bring real life into the classroom and educational life out to the street, the town, and the region. The four participating schools need to improve their teaching methodolgies and educational background by implementing and experiencing new practises. Students also need to acquire some basic knowledge in alternative ways and expand they commnunication and ICT competences, their initiative and colaborative skills. This project will bring participants such assets and, furthermore, a more independant and creative vision of the teaching/learning process. The project is adressed to 14-16 year old students. Participants of each country will collaborate to produce a colletive presentation of their school, neighbourhood, comunity, city, region and country and it will be sent and shown to all partners. This will be a cross-curricular activity. After getting to know the partners by means of the rest of the activities and mobilities participants will be able to analyse and debate about their collective identity, thus increasing their awareness of the European diversity, breaking their stereotypes and reinforcing their European roots. The second phase of the project will provide students with some curricular contents which will help them to interpret a local market. Such contents are linked to subjects such as biology, mathematics, history and geography, economics, law, music, arts and cratfs, etc, and will be taught within the class program. The third phase will consist of visiting the market and practice maths by converting factors, managing a budget or aplying statistics, learn about the local ecosystems by naming and classifying some fish species, figure out the history and the economy of a region by tracing its influences on the products or by analysing the profile of consumers, of a profession, or experiencing all the above through the art by taking pictures, drawing, recording sounds, etc. We can also learn about European laws (importation of products, food health and safety). In this third phase we will activate our nervous system by cooking and tasting some of the products of the market, which will also provide us with an emotional approach to the region. We will eventually produce an output which consist of a booklet of traditional recipes of the visited regions. The idea is that the kitchen, the market and the classroom, are some of the places where all the educationl subjects may meet. All three are projections of a region or even a continent. In this third phase participants will also attend four training courses (one per mobility) on different subjects that will help us to achieve our objectives since they will increase the efficiency of the activities. In Riga we will improve our general and special need people communication skills, in Perugia we will learn facts regarding European law, economics, and markets, in Gdynia we will expand our historic knowledge and learn links between society and architecture and in Mallorca we will learn facts about ecology, economy and tourism. All the activities and outputs will be presented and shown to all students and, in special events, to families, educational authorities, neighbourhood. They will be disseminated at a higher levels through other specific channels and all our materials will be available for anyone interested in them. However, the most efective dissemination channel will be those who have participated in the project and have changed their way of looking at markets and education.
The main objective of the project was to connect the contents learnt in class to real life and vice versa. The high drop-out rates in our region and the lack of motivation of the students led us to reflect on new learning methodologies. In this context, we developed an innovative and multidisciplinary project, which has been successfully completed. The markets seen as a point of exchange between consumers and sellers has served as a central axis to implement the academic content learnt in the classroom. The architecture of the market and its urban environment have a high level of culture. The history of the market is also a portrait of the region where it is located and we learn about it in Social Science. The preparation of a budget leads us to subjects such as Maths and Economics. The different animal and plant species that come from regional ecosystems are key elements to study Biology or even Latin when translating their names (taxonomy). The symphony of colours, smells, sounds and movements in a market can be painted, drawn, photographed and processed digitally. They can also be described in poems to practice writing. Finally, markets promote technology skills as well. As you may have noticed, the project has a high multidisciplinary content. The project is for the entire education community and each partner worked as a team with the different departments and all tasks were followed by Juan de la Cierva management. The goals were to integrate the project and that all its participants (parents, neighbors and shops). They have learnt and disseminated European values of the city or region throughout some cultural trips, contact with local authorities and dissemination in written press and television. For the organization, management, follow-up and evaluation of the project, three transnational meetings were held with the coordinators of each member state (an initial meeting, an in-between meeting and a final meeting). In them, all the tasks were carefully planned and the mobilities in each region were specified. The structure and chronology of the project was as follows: - Juan de la Cierva School (Spain). Our school was the project manager and responsible for the entire project, as it provided the other schools with all the necessary instructions to carry out the different activities and assessments. It also organized the third mobility. - ITET A.CAPITINI (Italy). They were email administrators and responsible for updating social networks. They also organized the second mobility. - Rigas Raina 8. Vakara (Latvia). They were in charge of the website creation and also organized the first mobility. - Szkola Podstawowa nr 11 (Poland). They were responsible for the E-twining and the organizers of the last mobility. All students have participated in the program somehow or other, but only a few (students between 14 and 16 years old) have been chosen to travel and take part in the mobility. This selection has been made with quantitative and qualitative criteria. To be more precise, 3 out of 4 places were chosen according to their academic merits, level of English and good behaviour. The last place was for those students we call ‘benefit / need’; consequently, teachers rated their skills, their interest and their opportunities to travel due to their social, economical and family environment. As regards the activities done before the mobilities, we want to highlight the research about the participating countries, the contest to find the logo of the project, the development of Erasmus promotional activities and the preparation for our partners’ reception. There were five activities in each mobility and only one was different depending on the country. - "Ice breaking Activity"; students had to interact and get to know each other so they were able to improve social and language skills. - Visit to a market and research work with different tasks. - "Cooking activity & Blindfold game"; they had to buy local products to prepare a dish and guess, using the senses, some of the chosen products. - "PowerPoint activity"; students had to prepare a final presentation about what they had learnt during the mobility. Topics: integration into the markets of people with difficulties, how to be a seller, sustainability of local products and architecture of the markets. - Cultural visit to learn the secrets of each region. In general, the impact on the education community has been spectacular. The students have far exceeded expectations and all participating centres have included in their school programs some of the items learnt, so we can see long-term benefits. In addition, having all the resources available both in eTwinning and on our website gives continuity to the project. Finally, the wide dissemination and promotion during and after its completion ensures its presence for future generations.