This project was born because of an objective verification done by an Italian and a French teacher, already partners in twinning projects between schools: too much parents drive their children at school, even if they live in the same area and then they don’t know the pleasure of walking and looking around. Every day outside the school,parents' cars create like an interruption that causes unbreathable air dangerous for health. So it’s necessary to rebuild an ecologic awareness in our students of 12\13 years, who very often don’t know the existence of alternative means of transport. The project will promote the use of existing infrastructure links to other local initiatives which aim to encourage increased cycle use. There should be a focus on enhancing and building upon skills and resources already present in the community. Our project will involve pupils in more activity and instill the habit of cycling into their lifestyle that they can take with them into adulthood. It intends to give a clear message that cycle sport is also cool and fun - it is not an elite sport, but one that can be enjoyed by everyone, pretty much anywhere Therefore the final goal is changing our habits, increasing consciousness and managing all that can be bad for our health and environment, making most responsible our students and much more eco-friendly our school. Riding the bicycle to go to school couldn’t seem original but our objective is demonstrating that physical and mental health are interconnected and contribute to the well-being of each other. Also scientific studies demonstrate that cycling facilitates the cognitive development of young people. So the most important aim is trying to develop an ecologic European citizen’s conscience. The discovery of the territory,going out in town with the bicycle, will let discover the prosperity of our lands and through this, find the criticality and formulate hypothesis for the transformation. At the end of the project it is expected that the students, instead of to be driven everywhere by their parents’ car, can be able to be independent in the shifts and that the bicycle should become in the future a sustainable alternative to the private motorized means. In the end they will understand the consequences of the indiscriminate use of the car on the planet, know the interventions about cycling in the European Countries but also in Italy, learning to be comparing to the good practices; also they will develop the independence of moving in the city, knowing and respecting the rules of the road, change their point of view in the observation of the territory, then they will be able to rediscover and share the open spaces, through the daily physical activity, improving their own physical and mental well-being and at last, through the creation of a tourist itinerary on the territory, they will know and appreciate the artistic and environmental properties of their own city. Countries involved are: Italy, France, Greece and Romania. The participant schools have the next common needs: to put in contact the students and their families with the fair trading of the planet and its defense, reevaluate the use of the bicycle as necessary mean of transport and not just like a game, strongly reduce the number of cars around the schools in the hours of beginning and ending of the lessons. Also they are foreseen activities with associations of the territory that operate in the social and ecologic sectors. The results of the project will be tangible: several digital products such as power point, video, creation of a blog, of an e-book or interactive book, graphs, advertising brochures, geographic papers of the own city, tables, etc. and not tangible, for example the improvement of the basic competences of the students (especially about the foreign language), the strengthening of the didactics through the use of the ICT, the development of the knowledge and above all of the competences in the education sector of students and teachers. The primary goal always remains the formation of an "ecologic" social conscience. All the involved Countries will make a mobility during 2 years, particularly each Country will visit the others with groups of 2 teachers and 8-9 students, so 25 persons for each mobility. The work will be distributed homogeneously between all the partners who will co-operate in relation to the own competences and involving several disciplines, while the Applicant Organisation will control in the administrative and operative way. The implementation activity will be developed during the 2 years through the realization of common activities agreed in the preparation phase and indicated in the e-form. Then Each Country, will prepare activities to propose in the mobility phase in its own educational institution (also indicate item by item). At the end of the project the participants will review an evaluation form in order to underline the points of strength and weakness of the whole project.
The project entitled "Veni, vidi ... Bici!" took place during the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 school years and considered the participation of the four partner institutions: La Salle College in Annecy-Pringy (France), in the role of coordinating institution; Scuola Statale of Primo Grado Dante Alighieri in Caserta (Italy), 2nd Gymnasio Alexandroupolis (Greece) and Liceul Tehnologic Baia de Fier (Romania) as partner institutions. The project was aimed especially at young people between the ages of 11 and 15, who are following the first stage of secondary education. However, in order to broaden the target group of the project and to promote a positive attitude among a larger number of people, awareness-raising activities were also conducted with pupils from primary schools in partner institutions, as well as with their families. In an international context where the safeguarding of the planet and environmental education become increasingly important issues, the project has set itself the essential objective of raising awareness among students, their families, school staff and local communities to the soft and ecological mobility, especially in connection with the use of the bicycle, no longer regarded as a simple object of leisure, but as a real means of daily transport for the young people. The initial observation being the traffic jams that occurred every day around the school units, especially at the beginning and end of the day, the project tried to suggest to the students effective and durable alternatives to the car, by providing both the keys for safe driving (learning the rules of the good cyclist, practical application of the standards of good conduct, maintenance activities and repair of a bicycle) and promoting knowledge of already existing structures (e.g.: cycle paths) or requesting for new ones (creation of pedibus, velobus etc.). The work on the soft mobility, moreover, was an opportunity to allow the pupils to better know their territory from the historical, artistic and natural point of view, as well as to compare the reality in different European countries, by observing the different possible answers to the same environmental theme. The project is part of the logic of an exchange of good practices between the partners, with important spin-offs from the pedagogical, cultural and social points of view: the comparison between school systems, the implementation of shared works and the work meetings between delegations during the weeks dedicated to training and learning activities have made it possible to achieve openness to the world within partner institutions, to develop an awareness of responsible eco-citizens among students and to install innovative pedagogical practices in the service of the acquisition of transversal skills. The project "Veni, vidi ... Bici!" consisted of two transnational coordination meetings (in France and Greece) as well as four weeks of mixed pupil-teacher mobility, one in each partner country. A total of 168 people (32 teachers, 136 students) participated in international training and learning activities, receiving a certificate of participation and an "Europass mobility" certifying the skills acquired. Each mobility has tried to decline the theme of awareness of soft mobility according to local or national specificities, by allowing young people to discover the different territories and to think about practices useful for protecting the environment and reducing pollution. These experiences have also had considerable impact on the mastery of modern languages, whether it is French (official language of the project), English (language of international communication) or the other languages of the countries concerned, which have been the subject of a first discovery by students and adults. The partnership project was an opportunity to open the partner school units to the local reality and seek synergies with local development stakeholders (local elected officials, institutions, associations, companies): with them we have intensified contacts and inaugurated a dialogue that will continue in the coming years, with the aim of providing concrete and tailored answers to the problem of travel to the school units. "Veni, vidi ... Bici!" has been intensely communicated to the general public, like the official channels of the institutions (institutional sites and ENT, social networks etc.), on the media (press, TV or local radios) and, in more detail, on the official website of the project (www.erasmusvenividibici.com), which made it possible to present all the achievements and actions carried out by the teams and illustrate, step by step, the highlights of the peak moments during the partnership.