Water is one of the most essential element of any kind of life on earth and in both quality and quantity we are facing a difficult period in the coming decades. Clean water bases are diminishing while the demand for water is increasing which unpleasant fact is recognized even by world leaders. This led to serious and strict commitments at the Paris Climate Change Conference last December. The climate agenda clearly states that climate change threatens to undermine the ability of countries to achieve sustainable development. Similarly, water is a cross-cutting issue that affects all aspects of development, including health, food security, economic development, ecosystem services and biodiversity. The particular focus on water, climate and resilience during the Paris Climate Conference aims to encourage cooperation and initiatives in the area, both between countries and between different civil society actors. The latest objective of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 6 is about "clean, accessible water for all". The teaching and training activities and their outcomes are to set a standard for this very important goal, and we wish to reach the High-Level Panel. We wish to show how educational institutes and the local communities behind them across Europe can promote Goal 6. As teachers we cannot sit back and watch the future of water, we have to be proactive in its preservation for the upcoming generations. The most influential way we can act is to create a meaningful educational program/project that educates students about its strategic role in life. However, the educational methods and approaches should be varied and as modern as possible as we feel the traditional classroom methods may not be sufficient for such a wide topic. Thus we aim to create a multidisciplinary and hands-on approach to teaching that can only be achieved when discovering the various fields of area that our partners can offer based on their special skills/expertise. The basic priority behind the project is to lay the methodological foundation of ‘good practices’ together with the teachers involved in the project. We aim to create a methodological model, which enables us to make an interdisciplinary educational program for the ages of 10-18 at secondary level as this age group will be the main focus range of our project activities. With the help of the program students will understand the importance of water, and how much it intertwines all fields of life. It is also essential for students to comprehend the vulnerability of water bases and the diminishing quantity of resources as well as the need to find ways of sustainable water management. Furthermore, students will also realize how important it is to work in a multinational project, as the very same rivers and water bases are often handled by other countries as well, as they pass through borders. However, water does not recognize borders or political treaties, and by approaching this vital element of life from various perspectives the school subjects covered in this application hopefully become a real, tangible experience which might help with a better understanding of sciences that otherwise may look too abstract for students. The international work is called into life with a clear intention of seeing the participating teachers become better educators, as they share the knowledge from their own expert area with others. The educational areas, subjects that we aim to develop are language skills, language teaching, history, geography, biology, chemistry, economics, environmental studies, water management studies, and maths.
The subject of our project "Clean Water Sources for the Future of Europe", as the name implies, concerned activities focused on the protection of water resources in order to save them for future generations. Schools from Poland, Italy, Turkey and Bulgaria participated in the project, which lasted two years. At the time of acceptance of our application form, there was a school from Portugal in our group, unfortunately this school resigned from participating in the project. That is why, after consultations with national agencies, we decided to change the action plan. Therefore, we relocated selected mobility and planned an additional LTTA visit in Poland. During the implementation of the project, we undertook many activities aimed at overcoming cultural barriers (presentations of schools, regions, countries, coffee and tea meetings during international visits, cultural trips) and activities resulting from the subject of the project (local trips to water intakes, drinking water sources, activities art sensitizing to the problem of lack of clean water and access to drinking water in many regions of the world, thematic conferences organized during international meetings). At the stage of summarizing the application, we assumed that approximately 1,200 people would benefit from our activities. During the implementation of the project, organized meetings, happenings, dissemination events and other local activities attracted a much larger number of people, including not only those who were directly involved in the implementation of planned activities. Thanks to the project, the participants developed their speaking skills in English, learned foreign cultures and thanks to the "clash" of representatives of the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim religions, they had the opportunity to develop a sense of acceptance and tolerance of different beliefs, cultures and traditions. One of the most important project results was the common creation of a Water Protection Card. It is a document, a declaration of all partners regarding the protection of water sources for future generations. In addition, a great achievement of our cooperation are numerous documents presenting the theme of water in art, literature and everyday life (economy, trade). In addition, we have created tourist guides about the regions where our partners came from. We hope that these documents will be creatively used by those interested and will inspire others to take new actions to improve the quality of life.