According to the UNESCO Background Note on the necessity of safeguarding cultural heritage (2013), "sustainable development and cultural heritage are inextricably linked since the latter plays a vital role in the protection of environmental resources and human wellbeing, especially due to the threats imposed by climate change, globalisation, urbanisation, the world financial crisis and growing inequalities". At the same time, the European Commission stresses the significance of sustainable tourism. In its Communication, ‘Agenda for a sustainable and competitive European tourism’, it proposes "sustainable tourism actions ... aiming at diversifying the tourism experiences on offer in the EU". In this context we have taken the initiative to propose an Erasmus+strategic partnership project coordinated by Greece and run in cooperation with Turkey, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic in order to foster our students' awareness of environmental and cultural sustainability alongside encouraging entrepreneural initiative-taking in alternative tourism. Besides, we wish to give our students the chance to make life experiences by cooperating closely with other European students and to contribute to their personal development, the activation of European citizenship attitudes and the development of their basic skills and key competences. All participating schools operate on the level of secondary education with pupils aged 15-18 years of age. The Italian school is a comprehensive school with an artistic orientation. The Turkish school is a vocational high school specialising in ICT. We all have some experience in EU programmes and cherish the idea of cooperating in this project sharing a deep concern in all the issues it addresses. Each school has initiated discussion of an activity with suggestions that have been endorsed by the other partner schools with great enthusiasm. The activities proposed address diverse aspects of environmental issues, i.e renewable energy applications, organic agriculture, environmental interventions, sustainable architecture and urban planning; tangible and intangible forms of cultural heritage, i.e. agriculture, architecture, urban planning, ecosystems, language, art, music, nutrition, folklore, migration, medicinal practices; all of which accommodated in alternative tourist guide plans. For each acttivity there is a coordinator and an evaluator school team. The coordinator collects materials from all schools and assigns the presentation of the final products to another school. As regards European cultural heritage, we aspire to create multi-modal texts such as: - organic seed bags, a seed bombs game, organic orchards in schools - sample tea bags, video guides to spas, the "Family doctor" role play, massage and exercise workshops - an e-game identifying sustainable buildings and a photo exhibition of our common architectural styles - a recipe book, role plays presenting local folklore, traditional games, dances, myths and tales - artworks inspired by our cultures - a DVD of a festival of traditional songs performed with traditional instruments and a choir from all six schools - a comic narrating the history of our ancestor's migration paths As for Sustainability and Entrepreneurship, we want to sensitise our students about the energy crisis and other environmental hazards and encourage them to devise business plans aiming at preserving energy resources and biodiversity through innovative applications with a dual emphasis on Renewable Energy and Tourism. We intend to produce: - documented interventions i.e. river renaturation, reforestation, beach cleaning; a film about sustainable urban planning - 3D printed or built models of renewable energy applications, such as a solar car, solar battery chargers, wind-powered kites, pellet heaters etc; an e-catalogue of state and private green enterprises - a website hosting local initiatives in the field of alternative tourism As far as skills and key competences are concerned, our activities aim at fostering our students' personal development with life skills, cross-curricular knowledge and transfer of knowledge, foreign language communicative competence, digital skills as well as 21st century citizenship competences and attitudes. Concretely, we are planning to: - create and apply mini courses to peer teach our languages to our partners - design and carry out our own tourist guiding programmes for virtual and actual sightseeing To sustain our project's products and extend its impact we will make sure that they can be used in the long term as teaching resources across our school curricula. To disseminate our messages and results to our local communities we will hold exhibiltions and other events with the aid of local authorities; to reach the global community we will exploit the EU education platforms and the social media.
According to the UNESCO Background Note on the necessity of safeguarding cultural heritage (2013), “sustainable development and cultural heritage are inextricably linked since the latter plays a vital role in the protection of environmental resources and human well-being…”. Besides, the EU Commission stresses that European cultural heritage does not only reflect our past but also shapes our present and builds our future contributing to social inclusion, strengthening resilience and improving well-being. Therefore, we decided to launch an Erasmus+ project focussing on Environmental and Cultural Sustainability as two pillars of our present upon which to guide our learners to construct bridges between the past and the future. Hence, our project is entitled: "Our Past is our Future: Environmental and Cultural Sustainability". We set off in 2018 and concluded in 2021 having requested a 12-month extension due to the CoVid19 pandemic and the restrictions it ensued to mobility. During this time frame our teams interacted regularly and managed to hold four physical and two virtual mobilities. Our strategic partnership, coordinated by Greece and comprising five more secondary schools from Turkey, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic has aspired to boost our students’ awareness of our shared natural and cultural European heritage and encourage them to reflect on ways of promoting environmental and cultural sustainability via scenario-based entrepreneurial initiatives in related fields. All participating schools operate on the level of secondary education with pupils aged 15 to18 years of age. Most of them provide general education with the Italian school being a comprehensive school with an artistic orientation. The Turkish school is a vocational lyceum specialising in ICT. We all had some prior experience in EU programmes to varying degrees and shared ideas and expertise. In this context, we aimed at offering our students opportunities to make life experiences cooperating with their peers from the partner schools in discovering similarities and differences across our cultures and jointly creating multi-modal products to display our shared wealth. Besides, this project has aspired to contribute to their personal development, the activation of European active citizenship attitudes and the development of their basic skills and key competencies. Our activities addressed diverse aspects of environmental issues, i.e renewable energy applications, organic agriculture, environmental interventions, sustainable architecture and urban planning; tangible and intangible forms of cultural heritage, i.e., language, art, music, gastronomy, folklore, entertainment, mythology, philosophy, migration, medicinal practices; all of which were presented in a national context and then included in common products reflecting our common European heritage. They also exchanged ideas for plans in Sustainable Tourism, Renewable Energy Applications, Sustainable Urban Planning and Architecture as well as Environmental Interventions. They have even drafted a virtual start-up enterprise for Environmental and Cultural Sustainability and got involved in Innovative Peer-Language Teaching. Last, they traced back the migration paths of our ancestors across our countries and understood the cross-influences among us. For each activity there was a coordinator and an evaluator school team. The coordinator collected the materials for the meeting presentations in shared folders in Google Drive and showcased the final products in our TwinSpace https://twinspace.etwinning.net/73126/home Our evaluation shows that we achieved our goals of intercultural and intracultural awareness as well as a deeper appreciation of European natural and cultural wealth and taken a step towards European active citizenship and green as well as cultural entrepreneurship. Besides, our students have experienced a boost in their macro-skills in cooperation, communication, research, presentation, critical thinking and creativity. They have even managed to transform the problem of the pandemic to a challenge and made the most of the last two mobilities that were converted into virtual ones. Our schools have also experienced the benefits of adopting a whole-school approach, internationalization and opening to our local communities. Most of the preparation for the mobilities engaged the whole school communities with large numbers of local participants cooperating for the creation of the tangible outputs of the project during normal school lessons and projects. Our project products will serve as resources for future lessons and projects at each of our schools. The teachers directly participating in this project have shared their newly acquired digital skills and expertise in eTwinning and other other European initiatives in education with their school-based colleagues and are planning to continue working on issues related to sustainability in the context of new partnerships.