CONTEXT, OBJECTIVES & PARTICIPANTS During this project students from all over Europe find out about the importance of SUSTAINABLE HANDLING of resources like water. All of the PROJECT´S PARTNERS have - due to different reasons like problems with too little groundwater, dirty rivers or catastrophies - great interest in SPREADING KNOWLEDGE about an essential ressource: WATER. For all of us it is a big aim to educate our students and raise them to NATURE CONSCIOUS ADULTS who are willing to protect this element. Therefore all paricipating countries (Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Lithuania and Portugal) establishes a club for about 24 students aged 12 - 15 who work on the project´s topic. METHODOLOGY & ACTIVITIES By doing various things like RESEARCH (for example on the meaning of waters as historically important "life veins"), ANALYSING quality of water, TAKING PHOTOS of beautiful landscapes with waters, EVALUATINGvsurveys (about the consumption of water of fellow students), PRESENTING their results and COOPERATING with students from other countries (by creating a joint leaflet about sustainable handling of water) the students develop intercultural, creative, communicative, scientific and social skills and use new technologies as a valuable tool to communicate. RESULTS & BENEFITS Results of the project are VERSATILE and will be used for various lessons after the end of the project: On the one hand the students design a CALENDAR (the Beauty of Water through the Seasons) with self-taken photos of waters in different times of the year. The calendar is handed to all participating schools and can also be sold for charity. It will show not only the beauty of water but also the omnipresence of water in our everyday life. That´s why students have to learn the handling with it. Moreover, they take part in a TALK SHOW about the effect of climate change onto waters and film themselves while doing so. Each group will prepare one student as being an expert, who takes part in this talk show. Finally, they create a joint LEAFLET about the topic of sustainable handling of water with the most important information for their school mates. Thus, they acquire not only the skill of CRITICAL THINKING in complex issues and learn to use the media competently and socially but also gain a deep understanding of the project´s topic. In the end they are EXPERTS at their own schools and messengers for SAVING WATERS.
This project had the aim to make our students understand about the importance of SUSTAINABLE HANDLING of resources like WATER. All of the project partners (Greece, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Portugal and Germany) have great interest in SPREADING KNOWLEDGE about this essential ressource. There are versatile reasons: some experienced droughts, others floodings of their hometowns, dirty rivers or too little groundwater. Even during the course of this project the students went through very dry summers with dried out lakes and parched harvests. So our participants experienced the ELEMENT WATER in various ways: they did some RESEARCH on the (historical) meaning of waters as "life veins", did a CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS of the water quality of their region, took part in a PHOTO COMPETITION about beautiful landscapes with waters, PREPARED, PERFORMED AND EVALUATED A SURVEY about the consumption of water of fellow students, PRESENTED their results and COOPERATED with the students from the partner schools, for example during a TALK SHOW in which they discussed the effect of climate change or by creating a joint LEAFLET ON SAVING WATERS. Other activities were... By all these activities our students gained not only mere knowledge of the topic water, they also improved their ability of THINKING CRITICALLY and were raised to be ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS INDIVIDUALS who know about the importance of SUSTAINABILITY. Additionally, the students developed intercultural, creative, communicative, scientific and social skills and identified new technologies as a valuable tool to communicate. One result of the project is a CALENDAR, designed by the students and called "the Beauty of Water through the Seasons". It contains self-taken photos of waters in different times of the year and shows that water is not only a resource but also has an irredeemable contribution to the scenic beauty of our regions and therefore must be protected. Finally, the students created a LEAFLET about the topic of sustainable handling of water whcih can be used in lessons, for example Biology or Geography. Our hope for the future is, that the participants are EXPERTS at their own schools and messengers for SAVING WATERS.