The main goal of the project is to bring benefits of healthy lifestyle based on nutritional eating habits to teenager’s attentions. They will learn which food components have the major impact on the development of young organisms, which components are the most valuable and which should be avoided because of their destructiveness. What is more, the students develop new eating habits, they will give up eating of highly processed foods and they will learn how to prepare healthy dishes. Thereby improve their quality of life, which will have influence of their overall mental and physical development. The Polish students from the junior high school, to achieve this goal, will cooperate with their peers from schools from Spain, Portugal and Romania. During gaining this knowledge they will exchange their experience, which can increase of level language competences, especially English. In addition to the regular meetings of international groups, students will cooperate through Internet using the various online tools and social networks (e.g. Facebook, Tweeter, Instagram, Skype). Also the students acquire new competence on various computer programs, because these competences will be needed to carry out comparative research. In each country there will be a group of 15-30 students working on the project, but in some of activities the whole schools will be involved. The very important part of the project will be including students from disadvantaged areas and students with low achievement in basic skills. This program is also designed to realize the students that preparing different meals, care of their good taste and proper composition can become an introduction to building their professional future. Those students, who don’t reach their goals with typical school subjects can find out that their future could be connected with culinary profession, for example chef, restaurant owner or dietician. They become convinced that they have a chance to find a good and rewarding job in all Europe. During the project there will be a comparative study conducted to obtain data on dietary habits and harmful substances in highly processed foods. The physical education teachers will organize sport events for a group of students during project meetings. In these competitions will participate not only students directly involved in the project, but also the rest of the students from host schools. The students, teachers of host schools and parents will also take part in events organized for participants during the meetings of international groups. The school coordinators will organize meetings with local authorities, presidents, mayors of towns and members of the local and regional organizations. The students and teachers will take trips to places of the production of regional foods in each partner country, and also they will learn the technology of this production. The students and teachers will take part in the lessons in host schools, discuss the similarities and differences between the ways of teaching, the school managers will present the organization of its work and compare the ways of organizing educational establishments in partner countries. The work in the project will be based on co-operation in groups. Other methods used in the project are practical methods - research carried out by created by members of the project group questionnaires and surveys, the results of which will be developed, analyzed and presented to the wider community in a readable form of graphs, diagrams of them contained the comments. The experts will carry out lectures and participants will take part in panel discussions. The workshops, during which students will prepare healthy meals and share knowledge about the traditional cuisine of their countries, will be held. The main result will be the base of learning materials connected with all fields of the project (healthy diet, active life, prevention of early school leaving, promoting lifelong learning, broadening cultural horizons, fighting against nationalism). The other results are essays titled "My Europe - my concern” to present a different points of view on the problems of contemporary Europe and suggestions how young people can solve them, groups on social networking sites to discuss and share all kinds of ideas, reflections on the topics connected with the projects and to publish photoblog and video recipes; the guide with information about educational opportunities and career opportunities for young people who are interested in education in the areas related to nutrition in partner countries, posters to promote the main idea of the project, brochure with the conclusions of the work with a guideline for responsible and healthy eating, along with a section about sport and dieting.
The project was created as a result of research and observation carried out on a representative group of children and adolescents aged 11-16 attending a post-primary school. All pupils from communities affected by problems such as unemployment or orphanhood generated by economic migration attend the school of the beneficiary and all partner schools. The project was supposed to broaden the horizons of students, make the relationship between lifestyle and its comfort, deepen their cooperation skills, language skills as well as mathematics and IT. After the information campaign, project groups of 15-30 members were created in each of the partner schools, who implemented all project activities. A large part of the activities involved all students, their parents and members of the local community. The primary goal was to make students aware of the great impact on their proper development a healthy lifestyle - the use of a proper diet in combination with physical activity. This goal was implemented by meetings with nutrition specialists, workshops during which students calculated the level of harmful substances (sugar) in meals, jointly arranged menus and preparing dishes proposed by themselves. They also visited farms specializing in the production of healthy food, explored regional cuisine as the heritage of the regions, as well as a way to produce food that would protect the natural environment. Students also got to know different forms of physical activity, which was to show them many opportunities to take care of their condition (eg dancing, swimming, cross fit, etc.). Improving their mathematical and IT skills, students prepared excel sheets in Excel to learn about the eating habits of their peers and their families. They prepared presentations in the Power Point program, in which they presented the results of research and provided information about their schools, cities, regions and countries. Such presentations on the next project activities were a permanent element of the school's "Open Doors" and other events and celebrations. The students also filmed the preparation of meals, joint meetings, then developed and made them available on channels such as Youtube. One of the films took part in the "Hello Europe" competition. Project participants created European Language Passports on the Europass website. They also learned the rules for creating other European documents on this site. The students improved their ability to use the English language, which was served by mutual communication with foreign partners, both during international meetings and on social networks. All the results of the work - presentations, films, and written works in the competition "My Europe, my case" had to be done in the language of the project, i.e. in English. Also, workshops, lectures, talks and discussions were held in English, which broadened the students' vocabulary and, above all, helped to overcome the language barrier. The project participants significantly improved the skills of working in a group. Many tasks (eg measuring the level of sugar, videos with exercises for the lazy ones) had to be implemented in international groups, often chosen randomly. Students had to communicate in English, share ideas, carry out tasks, skillfully manage conflict, present results of work in a group . The students had the opportunity to learn about the history, tradition, culture and religion of partner countries. They also learned daily habits, lifestyle and the specificity of national cuisine. They made friends with their peers and their family members and friends. Recognizing the differences, they realized that they have a positive impact on the shape of the EU. The level of their tolerance has substantially increased, especially in relation to the religion and traditions of other nations. The project involved teachers from partner schools, conducting various types of activities with students (eg singing lesson, lesson on skilful reading of labels on food packaging, cooking workshops, presentation of educational opportunities in partner countries), parents and the local community. In each of the partner countries, students met with representatives of local authorities.