Radiation can not be stopped on national borders, but its impact on our environment and health is manifold: Can radiation be both – a curse and a blessing? The main idea of our project is the cooperation between European students in working on a central sociopolitcal topic with a natural scientific emphasis. The comparison of general formal and school curricula show that radiation is an essential part of every school’s syllabus. During the whole project period students in all the partner schools will work on the topic and every school will find ist own suitable procedures of choosing the students and integrating the project work in the school’s everyday life. The suggested project can be divided into two main stages. In the first year 2018/19 (stage 1) students will help each other to understand the physical basis of different kinds of radiation and their biological effects on human beings. Moreover, they will support each other in grasping the sociopolitical dimension of the topic. According to the questions that the students develop, various central aspects can be studied by different groups of students, e.g. certain frequency ranges of electromagnetic radiation (such as x-rays, mobile phone radiation, radiation of different material particles (such as Alpha radiation, cosmic radiation)), the examination of different materials with a focus on their absorption behaviour, their shielding behaviour, the relevance of certain technical devices and institutions for politics and the economy as well as the effects on health and environment. Students will also need to find out about national limit values for radiation and European legislations. These results will be presented and discussed during the meetings. They will help to get a deepened knowledge of the status quo as they are interdisciplinary and transnational outcomes. The students will also improve their skills in doing natural scientific research. They will learn to distinguish between facts and fake news. Moreover, they will familiarize with the sociopolitical discussion and decision as well as with international teamwork and complex analysis in the English language. In the course of the project students will acquire basic skills for their personality development (self competence), for their future profession (professional orientation) and for active European organisation (intercultural competence). In the second year (stage 2) students will expand European strategies based on a good compromise between a) requirements of an economic development that result in demands e.g. in terms of communication, energy supply or medical engineering and b) demands of health care. Moreover, students will progressiveley take on responsibility as well as a common self-monitoring for the course of the project. At first, solution strategies will be found within the schools. Then delegates of the schools will discuss their strategies and ideas during the transnational meetings and will ftry to find common perspectives. Within the framework of this project students will socialize with European peers, learn about and appreciate cultural differences and similarities and develop and broaden their self-concept as active European citizens. Apart from the students teachers will also profit from the own school and curriculum development caused by the project as well as from the transnational exchange of various different teaching and learning methods. The basic idea of European cooperation through integration of students, teachers and parents as well as through collaboration with partners in economical, scientifical and political branches will be promoted and realized.
With our project “Radiation – Curse or Blessing?” we wanted to clarify for a period of two years whether this central question could be answered. A total of six schools from Denmark (Københavns Tekniske Skole from Copenhagen), Germany (Gymnasium Süderelbe from Hamburg), Finland (Pyhäjoen lukio from Pyhäjoki), France (ISEC LEPGT) Ste Marie du Port from Olonne sur Mer), Great Britain (Highlands School from London) and Poland (Zespol Szkol nr 10 im. prof . Stefana Banacha and Toruniu from Toruń) worked together in this school partnership. We planned that each of the participating schools would organise a work meeting at their school to deepen the selected focus. We almost succeeded in this organizational challenge! Unfortunately, the Corona pandemic prevented our final meeting, which was supposed to take place in France. Here all results should be collected, final documents created and the project should be finished with a big party. Despite an extension of the project for another six months, we were unable to hold this meeting due to the extended travel restrictions. Five students and two teachers from each school were invited to each of our five workshops. The school where the meeting took place was also able to invite teachers and students who were involved in the project. The size of the group therefore consisted of 30 students and 12 teachers plus other students and teachers of the host school for excursions, laboratory visits and also work in the school (e. g. experimenting, research work on the computer) was an organisational challenge. At each workshop we combined basic knowledge from the classroom with expert knowledge from research and industry. We planned that their visit to extracurricular learning sites, the students learned about current research results and experienced the scientific work at universities, research laboratories and industrial companies. With the preparation and follow-up in the classroom between the transnational meetings, they developed materials that linked the socio-political theme with the scientific focus of radiation. We have worked on the following areas: - Scientific understanding of electromagnetic radiation, - Construction of a measuring device with a micro controller "Arduino" (sensors were completed in the course of the project), - Focus on biology and medicine (use and risks of radioactive radiation), - Lectures on the structure of matter and the functioning of an accelerator, - X-rays experiments, - Study of neutrinos, effects of natural radiation on humans and nature, - Political functioning in the European Parliament, the work of the European Commission, - Lectures on nuclear power plants, excursion to a nuclear power plant, medical consequences of nuclear power were discussed, - Natural radiation using the example of Northern Lights, excursion to an observatory for the registration of electromagnetic radiation from outer space, - Experiencing heat radiation during an excursion in a steelworks. The project showed that there is no answer to the central question. The basic prerequisite for an assessment is an understanding of the natural sciences. With our measuring instrument, radiation became “visible”, the advantages and disadvantages became clear on the basis of the selected focal points. The different positions of the European countries became clear, e.g. with regards to the use of nuclear energy to generate electricity or to the question of the risks of radiation in the field of medicine for humans. The interdisciplinary combination of scientific and political learning content on the subject of radiation led to a deeper understanding of the subject, which allowed the students to comprehensively and critically evaluate current discussions. The students improved their skills in the field of scientific enquiry and research and research, of socio-political debates and decision-making, of international teamwork and of discussing complex contexts in English. The pupils thus acquired basic skills for their personal development (self-competence), their future profession (vocational guidance) and an active creation of Europe (intercultural competence). The students were trained in the use of digital learning content and forms of communication. These transversal competences are important for a participation in modern societies, also with regards to a future potential career profiles in European research or industry. Although students today grow up with digital media and communication services, content-based work with digital media requires different application strategies than the private communication students are used to. By using Twinspace and the creating of online materials in English, the students learned and developed these transversal skills while increasing their language skills.