The world is changing rapidly and both pupils and teacher need to acquire new skills and competences to face these changes. Challenges such as environmental problems, economical crisis and the inclusion of a vast number of immigrants are just some of the issues young Europeans will have to tackle in the 21st century. Alongside the changes in the world our schools are changing also. The rapid expansion of the digital era, new curricula and new methods of teaching such as phenomenon-based, multidisciplinary learning require innovative practices and new material. In order to keep up with these changes and equip our pupils with the best possible tools to do well in their studies, prospere and enter the labour market prepared, active citizens of Europe, we need to develop new ways of teaching. We believe that by strengthening the professional profile of teachers we support pupils’ holistic growth and help them acquire the competences they need. The theme of our project is body of water. The aim of the project is that the pupils understand the importance and different cultural meanings of the bodies of water. Pupils will be active participants in several multidisciplinary learning activities, which give them chances to discover the body of water from various points of view. During the learning process pupils also learn about documenting the learning process, presenting the results in public, disseminating the results and evaluating the processes. We expect to involve about 2000 participants both directly (teachers and pupils in the partner schools) and indirectly (parents, local stakeholders, companies, students and staff of the cooperating universities, other schools nearby) in this project. 100 persons (plus the pupils and teachers of the organising school) will be participating in the learning / teaching / training activities and 16 will participate in the transnational meetings. The pupils will participate in multidisciplinary phenomenon based learning activities that promote their acquisition of skills and competences on various areas. The planned activities include scientific research of water and the fauna, enhancing media skills by making videos, writing texts, making advertisements, composing and presenting music, visiting culturally meaningful places, becoming acquainted with water preserving and environmental aspects of bodies of water. These activities develop multiliteracies, open up the different cultures and the meanings of the bodies of water. All the processes will be documented, evaluated and disseminated in collaboration with the pupils and the teachers. During the process we produce phenomenon based multidisciplinary teaching material which will be published on our website. The teachers will develop the material, test pedagogically suitable ICT tools in all of the activities, reflect on their experiences and thereby strengthen their professional skills. We will organise four learning/teaching/training activities in four countries (Finland, Spain, Poland and Portugal) during the course of the project. Between these activities the pupils from all the participating schools will also prepare smaller scale projects. Some of the activities will be long-term activities, lasting the entire course of the project. We will also organise two transnational meetings, one at the beginning of the project and the other at the end of the project. As a concrete result, we are going to publish material supporting phenomenon based multidisciplinary learning on our website. Also, two teachers will be collecting data for their articles that will be published in scientific journals. The cultural exchange will enrich and develop practices in our schools. The shared good practices will develop our schools in organising phenomenon based learning in the future, which for example in Finland is obligatory according to the new national curriculum. The results will be seen both in pupils learning skills as well as the pupils’ picture of the world. They will learn cultural diversity and the project will enhance their European citizenship. The pupils will learn valuable skills such as collaboration, language skills, expressing themselves through various arts-based methods, using valid scientific research methods, utilizing ICT tools in different stages of learning processes. For many pupils, this project will be the first international experience and may prove to be a unique opportunity.
The theme of our project was the bodies of water nearby the participating schools. The aims of the project were that the pupils would 1) understand the importance and different cultural meanings of the bodies of water, 2) learn how to research the features of water and the bodies of water, 3) become interested in protecting bodies of water, 4) through active participating enhance their agency on learning. We also aimed at teachers' professional growth by gaining expertise in planning and teaching in phenomenon based learning environments. One of our goals was to create teaching material for phenomenon based learning to be re-used and developed further. The descriptions about all of the workshops are uploaded on Erasmus+ Project Results Platform as "Toolkits". During the project we created pedagogical structures that enable phenomenon based learning, focusing for example on media education, multidisciplinary collaboration and presenting the learning results. These pedagogical structures are uploaded on Erasmus+ Project Results Platform as "New methodologies and techniques". Pupils were active participants in several multidisciplinary learning activities, which gave them chances to discover the body of water from various points of views: through music, media, arts and sciences. The activities included 1) exploring cultural meanings of water by composing and presenting music, photographing, shooting videos and visiting culturally meaningful places, 2) enhancing media skills by making videos, writing texts and analyzing and making advertisements, 3) learning how to do scientific research on water and the fauna of the body of water and 4) becoming acquainted with water preserving and environmental aspects of bodies of water. These activities aimed at developing pupils' transversal skills in collaboration, multiliteracies and becoming experts in their own learning trajectories. During the project pupils learnt about reflecting, evaluating and documenting their learning processes and presenting and disseminating the results in the symposiums that were organized in the participating schools and various media (newspapers, radio, tv, internet). Furthermore, teachers developed their skills in teaching in phenomenon based and multidisicplinary learning environments. The project inspired the teachers also to create new multidisciplinary projects that were not in the actual plan. Most of the activities utilized ICT tools which both the teachers and the pupils learnt to use and evaluated their suitability in pedagogical context. We organized four learning/teaching/training activities (LTT weeks) in four countries (Finland, Spain, Poland and Portugal) during the course of the project. Between these activities the pupils from all the participating schools prepared smaller scale projects which were presented during the LTT weeks. The whole project involved about 2000 participants both directly (teachers and pupils in the partner schools) and indirectly (parents, local stakeholders, companies, students and staff of the cooperating universities, other schools nearby). Around 200 persons were active participants in four LTT weeks. Moreover, to enable a larger group to benefit from the project the smaller scale projects between the LTT weeks were done by the whole classes, not only by the traveling pupils. We also organized two transnational meetings; one at the beginning of the project and the other at the end of the project. In the first transnational meeting we agreed on the common principles of the project, made the dissemination plan and defined the responsibilities. In the last transnational meeting we collected information from all the partner schools for the final report, evaluated the whole project and discussed its impacts. 16 teachers participated actively in the transnational meetings and all the teachers of the Greek and Finnish schools participated them indirectly. The cultural exchange enriched and developed learning and teaching practices in our schools. The shared good practices developed our schools for example in organizing phenomenon based learning in the future. The pupils learnt about the multilayered meanings of the bodies of water and valuable transversal skills such as collaboration, language skills, expressing themselves through various arts-based methods, using valid scientific research methods, utilizing ICT tools and becoming aware of different kinds of learning processes. The feedback from the parents has been encouraging and show that they appreciate possibilities to study in international context.