Agricultural education is today fully concerned by agro ecological transition. Teaching how to produce differently is a priority in the schools which meet the demands of a profession more and more converted to alternative productions. The “APPEL” project (Learning to grow by protecting environment and humans) is that of 4 schools : Germany, Austria, metropolitan and overseas France. Their common point lies in the training in organic market gardening production. It is this teaching medium which enables them to unite their means in order to run a development project on their educational practices and their citizenship. The “APPEL” project has three approaches : exchanging alternative technical knowledge in market gardening and thanks to this medium, improving educational practices and raising awareness about citizenship. The challenge of this project lies in the interface of mutations in agricultural systems and educational concern in schools of agriculture. Migratory movements are in the heart of our problem because they are intercontinental and many countries welcome in their schooling a certain number of refugees. Their sinuous educational backgrounds are added to the heterogeneousness of our classes : young people with few opportunities (JAMO), young people with specific needs, all threatened with school dropping out. For the teachers and the learners, it is necessary to understand the diversity of profiles of the students (skills, difficulties, motivation and civic awareness) with a differentiated instruction. The final aim is to meet the demands of the employers which need skilled staff, so as to ensure employability. The implementation and management will be carried out through project meetings such as seminars and video conferences which will assess the progress of the project. The dynamic of production, commercialization and consumption, the exchanges of good practices will be carried out around three main meetings (seminars) at the partners’ places with specific domains : Mayotte, Agroforestry and its ginger crops and hot peppers grown under pepper plants, Freiburg with its farmers’ market and soil fertility, Wintzenheim with its study of proper soil cultivation equipment. There will be bilateral mobility of teachers and tutors in order to deal in depth with certain techniques and educational aspects. Our working method is composed of several steps : the first one enables to identify the educational and cultural practices of the schools and to appropriate their problems in school dropping out. The second step enables to test a few of these practices considered as interesting and to assess them via a participative approach with the students (using for examples games on citizenship). Eventually, it is especially considered to communicate and exchange on these practices using the ENT Grand Est platform (Digital Working Space). This space will enable to share our results on a larger scale and with people taking part in agricultural training. Student better self-esteem and confidence in their abilities are expected, a better motivation for their schooling should ensue. The meetings and play activities on citizenship will bring more tolerance towards the other’s differences. For the teachers, the study of educational practices may lead in change of methods. The teaching of our republican values combined to intercultural realities of our partners is an essential added value for the improvement of our educational tools.
"Learning to Produce while Protecting the Environment and Humans" was the main theme of our APPEL project. Faced with the demand of society for quality products, obtained with respect for nature, the partners not only exchanged good practices in market gardening, but also the teaching methods which allow "teaching to produce differently", as well as education for citizenship, confirmation of European identity and multiculturalism. The methods adopted or adapted have made the learner an actor in his training. Videos and applications on mobile phones during practical work, as well as games (role-playing or social games) for the acquisition of knowledge and reasoning, have made training courses more attractive for people who are often trying to find themselves. The activities brought together 60 young people, including around ten with fewer opportunities. The joint training courses enabled 30 colleagues to engage in in-depth exchanges. In addition to these people, each meeting was attended by at least 25 local participants (staff from the establishments, farms and professional structures visited). In total, more than 250 people cooperated for more attractive and more palpable benefits in the short term and invaluable in the medium and long term. The added value was acquired, first of all in the vocational particullarities: the multiplication of plants by seeds, cutting varieties. The forms of marketing, in direct sales, are very original. Tilled and untilled soil thanks to green manures. The self-construction of machines and tools to correspond to the particularities of the local data. Agroforestry with the forste of Mayotte, this natural multi-crop garden, which inspired the "Jardins du Plixbourg" farm. A project is tied up, and will be carried out according to the climatic conditions of the region. On the educational level, it is in professional situations that a few methods have been developed; the emphasis remains on "teaching" and less on "producing differently", since all the partners are in organic production. In Coconi with the vanilla and chilli pepper plantations via videocapsules, the learner found himself the subject of his apprenticeship by creating a distance from the skills he builds up during filming, editing and recording of comments (reflexivity). In Wintzenheim with the manufacturing of a market gardening tool and a reasoning of cause and effect: inclination of the parts to be welded according to its action on the soil or the control of green manure by a mobile application. In perennial benefit, knowing how to react and making a decision or reconciling with the knowledge of plants. In Freiburg, a circuit, held by the apprentices, raised awareness of the virtues of the soil in every conceivable form of soil analysis: by checking between thumb and forefinger its consistency to the touch and its cracking to the ear; its granulometry and its nature to be crushed between the teeth, without neglecting the usual searches for Ph, humus content, the spade test and the discovery of a thousand billion microorganisms. Quite a benefit, after the abandonment of the living soil by intensive agriculture, the return to love of the soil... In Langenlois, the professional situations were the extraction of seeds, the harvesting of winter vegetables: comparison and reflection on varieties that can withstand the cold and the sale of goods in restaurants. The visits allowed a good understanding of the mechanisms of the seed market: legislation favourable to monopolies with its official catalogue and certification against royalty-free and reproducible seeds as in organic market gardening, local farmers; awareness of the notion of added value for a rapid return of bio-diversity. In terms of citizenship education, the harmony of man with nature in the Mahorayan garden, which is in total contrast with the reality of the social divide, has made it possible to question our democratic values and the origin of migratory flows almost on site. At the same time, the meeting in mobility of European structural programmes and the Erasmus+ project was, for example, the proof of solidarity and development in an ultra-peripheral territory: the illustration of one of the European identities with that of the EU regulations evoked in another context, finally was an identity reinforcement. The contrasts in traditions and cultural heritage have made it possible to better accept differences and to be more tolerant of the evolution of civilisations. The astonishment of the Mahorais people at the age-old longevity of our cathedrals and the astonishment of the young people of metropolitan France, Germany and Austria, diving in the colours of the coral reef and the tropical flora, all finally immersed by Erasmus+, will remain.