ECO CITY 2030 The education of Sustainable Development has to be fully integrated in pupils' learning and this from the early age. Indeed, it will allow them to obtain the necessary knowledge and methods to evolve in their own environment and act in a responsible manner. By 2030, almost 60 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas. Three European high-schools have decided to unite themselves and create together a strategic partnership - ERASMUS+ KA2, in order to take up educational and pedagogical challenges regarding sustainability in their cities. Those schools are from three European countries – France, Norway and Greece. They all aspire to work together so as to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals 11 (SDG) defined by the United Nations agenda by 2030. The diversity of our territories will allow the pupils and their families to discover and appreciate the wealth of the European continent but also to become aware of the existing environmental, economic and sociocultural issues. As part of the project 'European Cooperative Open CITY 2030', the pupils will first have to think about existing issues around sustainability in their city, then they will together imagine and propose solutions for the creation of a European virtual sustainable city. The topics which will be covered are: food, biodiversity, waste, water, energy, solidarity and social inequalities. The pupils will become actors of their own learning and they will learn how to act as citizens of their city, at the local scale, but also as European citizens with their classmates from other countries. During the mobilities, pupils from the different countries will work together to create diverse collaborative productions such as surveys / investigations around sustainability, articles, video reports... All the pupils' products will feed and illustrate the virtual sustainable city which will be created on a 3D Builder Online Software. Several subjects will get involved in this project, by this way, pupils will enhance their knowledge and develop abilities and cross-disciplinary skills which will reinforce their learning process. Through subjects such as biology, physics and chemistry, the scientific approach will complete the understanding of European societies and the multi-scalar approach which are covered in subjects such as history, geography and civic education. Throughout the project, other key skills such as communication in a foreign language (English + based language of the hosting country) and digital competences will be developed and graded by certifications (Europass mobility + computing certificate). Beyond the improvement of their skills through an interdisciplinary learning, the pupils will enrich their personal experience thanks to the integration of values and qualities, such as self-confidence, autonomy, creativity, respect, team-work...The teachers will be confronted to innovative pedagogical methods which will enhance their professional expertise in their subject, interdisciplinarity and project management. This cooperation will definitely lead the educative teams from each country to exchange good practices together. Indeed, they will share and confront their ideas, practices and methods to teach sustainable development. Moreover, internal training sessions will be organised within each school so as to share those good practices with other colleagues desirous of initiating an Erasmus project. All the educative products and resources will be available on a collaborative platform dedicated to the project and easily reachable from the respective schools websites, the town councils websites and also from the eTwinning plateform. The implementation of the project ECO CITY 2030 will allow the participating schools to become elegible to the acquisition of different labels (sustainability label, computing/digital label...) and certifications from their own country but also from Europe (eTwinning school label...). ECO CITY 2030 will highlight the pupils' efforts and make them act as full citizens of their city andEurope. They will adopt new eco-citizen habits and they will also participate to the democratic decision-making process, thanks to their proposals regarding sustainability. This project will createnew relationships and a better cooperation within the schools and with the local partners. Finally, each school will broaden its European and international openness. This partnership will aim at creating long-lasting relationships between the three schools but also between the three European cities – Kremlin-Bicêtre (France), Lillestrom (Norway) and Alimos (Greece).
The European high schools Darius Milhaud (France), 1st Lyceum of Alimos (Greece) and Skedsmo videregående skole (Norway) have joined forces from 2018 to 2020 in the Erasmus+ partnership "E.C.O CITY 2030 (European Cooperative Open City 2030)". This project was initiated and coordinated by the Lycée Darius Milhaud, in Le Kremlin Bicêtre (France). It was born out of a desire to further integrate European openness in the partner schools. It also responded to the need to work on a European scale on Sustainable Development issues at a time when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to be implemented. A total of 90 pupils from the three schools worked together for two years (including via etwinning) on the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11: "Sustainable Cities and Communities". The ECOCITY 2030 project had various objectives: to increase pupils' commitment to Sustainable Development through European collaborative work, to develop pupils' social, linguistic and digital skills and competences in a context of mobility, to get pupils more involved in citizen consultation and decision-making processes around Sustainable Development, to promote innovative and cross-curricular teaching practices among the partner schools. As part of this project, the pupils worked in European teams and first created collaborative posters on the Sustainable Development issues existing in their cities. Each European team of pupils will work on one theme: energy supply, food, waste management, social inequalities... In a second step, the pupils took part in mobility trips to each of the three countries in order to highlight solutions to the problems previously raised. During the trips, the pupils met local sustainable development actors, produced video reports, participated to scientific workshops and local conferences. Finally, the pupils from the three partner countries contributed to a common eTwinning platform and produced a collaborative magazine Madmagz presenting their project and some future solutions for sustainable European cities. The E.C.O CITY 2030 project has helped to develop many cross-curricular skills that will be a real asset to these 21st century citizens. They have each obtained an eTwinning certificate and a Europass Mobility. The project has also stimulated new long-term practices in the partner schools, with the organisation of internal "Erasmus+" training courses, the creation of other Erasmus+ projects, and the appointment of eco-pupils. This project received an eTwinning quality label and was a finalist for the 2019 Hippocrene Prize for European Education. Moreover, the high-school Lycée Darius Milhaudhas been rewarded, in March 2021, with the Label eTwinning School by the eTwinning agency. Indeed, the project ECO CITY 2030 has boosted other projects using the platform eTwinning in the school.