The project addresses young European students (10-15) in four different schools from Portugal, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Italy. This Project will be the basis of a case study about Project- based learning and we also want students to think and learn about 4 crucial Elements which we all should consider for the wellbeing of the world, its questions and actual problems: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. In this context we want students to learn by themselves, to learn how to research, how to make and present academical work, to learn in real context and to come up with innovative and entrepreneur ideas in a problem solving context. The countries were chosen due to geographical and environmental characteristics that will strengthen the students’learning: in Portugal students will face “Water”; in the Czech Republic they’ll deal with “Earth”; the Netherlands they will learn about “Air” and in Italy they’ll get the chance to additionally learn about “Fire”. We also aim to help students improving their skills to overcome failure, to promote success, self-confidence, self-esteem, participatory spirit and social acceptance and to become future European citizens. We will work in cooperation aiming to reach all the goals above stated and using different educational supports: the teaching/learning done in the regular classroom and the Project-based learning promoted by the clubs created to support this Erasmus+ Project. This way students will have the chance to work their ICT skills, their entrepreneur skills, their communication as well as their literacy skills in different clubs: eTwinning / Technology club and Environmental club. We will adopt a Project-based methodology and a digital teaching method "The Flipped Classrom" so that students can learn and work towards success; we will adjust the methodology whenever necessary after discussing the best way to reach our goals and increase the non-formal education situations so that students can also learn from the day-to-day experience in different schools from different countries. The team of teachers in each school that will guide them will work together at all times communicating and discussing online in a regular basis and the school’s community will be involved at all stages of the project. Students will work their own school curriculum (in areas such as Science, English and ICT) guided towards the Projects’ goals so that all makes senses and this way we can motivate students to reach better results, better communication skills and overcome their difficulties. Students will learn about each Element what they need to learn in academical terms, research about environmental problems that are connected to each Element, create an action plan towards those problems and think on innovative ways to deal with them. We intend to create an Environmental club and an eTwinning Project after the project ends to keep it going on, to continue discussing and exchanging new ideas and to reach other European schools. At each school we will choose a class of students around 11-15 according to certain characteristics (hardworking and commited students) and at the clubs we will work with those students and with others facing educational, economical and social problems. There will be a selection programme established to choose the students that will participate in the short-term exchanges, taking into consideration that we will always choose students from both situations (the classroom context and the Clubs). There will be 2 Coordinators meetings (in which will participate 32 teachers) to set up all that we need to make a succesfull Project and to evaluate it at the end and 4 students mobilities with the participation of 32 teachers and around 68 students. These mobilities will give students the chance to cooperate/communicate directly with others and to learn in real context. More than 3000 beneficiary will be impacted at the end. Since these children come from such diverse social and geographical backgrounds, this will be a unique opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of each of those cultures and languages. There will be teams of 5 teachers in each partner organization so 20 in total will take actively part in the project activities. There will be a teacher of English, two Science/Biology teachers, an ICT teacher and a last teacher to be chosen according to the Project’s needs and to each school’s own characteristics. At the end of the Project we expect the work to be done to impact on two fields: the case study will be disseminated to teachers and schools so that others can learn with our work and get motivated to apply new methodologies; the work done around the 4 Elements will be disseminated locally, nationally and in an European context to get others thinking about environmental issues and on ways to overcome them. During the Project development we will continuously plan, adjust, evaluate and cooperate in order to reach successful results.
The project addresses young European students (10-15) in four different schools from Portugal, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands and Italy.This Project was the basis of a case study about a new learning/teaching method, the Flipped Classroom, and we also wanted students to think and learn about 4 crucial Elements which we all should consider for the wellbeing of the world, its questions and actual problems: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. Within this context we managed students to learn by themselves, to learn how to research, how to make and present academical work, to learn in real context and to come up with innovative and entrepreneur ideas in a problem solving context. The countries were chosen due to geographical and environmental characteristics that strengthened the students’learning: in Portugal students were involved within “Water” activities; at the Czech Republic they dealt with “Earth” activities; at the Netherlands they learned about “Air” and in Italy they got the chance to additionally learn about “Fire”. We also aimed to help students improving their skills to overcome failure, to promote success, self-confidence, self-esteem, participatory spirit and social acceptance and to become future European citizens.We worked in cooperation and were able to reach all the goals above stated by using different educational supports: the teaching/learning was done in the regular classroom and the Project-based learning was promoted by the clubs or extracurricular activities created to support this Erasmus+ Project. This way students had the chance to work their ICT skills, their entrepreneur skills, their communication as well as their literacy skills in different clubs or extracurricular activities: eTwinning / Technology club and Environmental club.We adopted a Project-based methodology and a digital teaching method "The Flipped Classrom" so that students could learn and work towards success; we adjusted the methodology whenever necessary after discussing the best way to reach our goals and increase the non-formal education situations so that students could also learn from the day-to-day experience in different schools from different countries.The team of teachers in each school that guided them worked together at all times communicating and discussing online in a regular basis and the school’s community was involved at all stages of the project.Students worked their own school curriculum (in areas such as Science, English and ICT) guided towards the Projects’ goals so that all made sense and this way we could motivate students to reach better results, better communication skills and learn how to overcome their difficulties. Students learnt about each Element what they needed to learn in academical terms, researched about environmental problems that are connected to each Element, created an action plan towards those problems and thought on innovative ways to deal with them. We created an Environmental club or an Extracurricular approach related to Environment and an eTwinning Project that,after the project ends, will be kept, to continue discussing and exchanging new ideas and to reach other European schools.At each school we chose one or two classes of students around 11-15 according to certain characteristics (hardworking and self-committed students) and at the clubs we worked with those students and with others facing educational, economical and social problems. There was a selection programme established to choose the students that participated in the short-term exchanges, taking into consideration that we chose students from both situations (the classroom context and the Clubs).There were 3 Coordinators meetings to set up all that was needed to make a succesfull Project and to evaluate it at the end. There were also 4 students mobilities with the participation of 32 teachers and around 68 students. These mobilities gave the students the chance to cooperate/communicate directly with others and to learn in a real context. More than 3000 beneficiary were impacted at the end. Since these children came from such diverse social and geographical backgrounds, this was an unique opportunity to develop knowledge and understanding of each of those cultures and languages.There were teams of 4-5 teachers in each partner organization so 20 in total took actively part in the project activities. There was a teacher of English, one or two Science/Biology teachers, an ICT teacher and one or two other teachers were chosen according to the Project’s needs and to each school’s own characteristics.At the end of the Project the work done caused impact on two fields: the Case Study that was disseminated to teachers and to schools so that others can learn with our work and get motivated to apply new methodologies; the work done around the 4 Elements was disseminated locally, nationally and in an European context to get others thinking about environmental issues and on ways to overcome them.