What has led to the idea to carry outthis project is the increasingly widespread problem of junk food consumption, growing sedentariness and obesity. It turns out that 15% of our students are overweight. Thus, the main objective of this project is to make children and parents aware of the importance of the right proportion of "healthy food - movement" for a healthy life. The project is aimed primarily at culturally, socially and economically deprived pupils who have been most affected by this overwhelming problem. The students who will participate in the project are between the ages of 4 and 16 summing up a total of around 600 students. Among these, 75 students will participate in educational activities abroad. At least 40% of them belong to the weakest group of the schools’ community. Approximately 60 teachers will be involved. Parents will take an active part in all phases of the project as a multiplier factor in outcomes and supporting teachers in the organizing events. In particular, we propose to encourage our pupils to: understand the quality of food and effects upon us, investigate the relationship between place, time, religion and culture in relation to our health, become aware of the difference between eating and overeating, promote knowledge and importance of physical movement, develop a common idea of healthy life, integrate refugees, immigrants; culturally diverse and disadvantaged, develop a sense of respect for obesed classmates, reducing bullying, make a contribution to a Europe of respectful and cooperative youth, remove stereotypes, racism, xenophobia, interact with peers from other countries, learn their language, cultures, traditions, customs and good habits, improve communication skills in English and ICT skills, develop critical, logical thinking, increase access to early childhood education. The planned activities are: logo creation and exhibition zones; teacher training on OER (Open Educational Resources) and gamification; creation of the project site and dissemination; discovery of healthy food in traditions; focus on daily exercises in the classroom; the Mediterranean diet Turing activities in Italy; celebration of the World Health Day; the discovery of ecological food; creation of the garden at school; food and movement - outdoor life. Activities in Estonia; discovery of the properties of the colors of fruit and vegetables, centrifuges in the classroom - creation of an interactive educational game; the Olympics: sport and fraternity during activities in Greece; celebration of the world bicycle day with street demonstrations; preparation of typical healthy recipes at school; creation of the "Health recipe book". Pupils and teachers will prepare reports to be shared with those who have not been able to participate in activities abroad. We will carry out sports activities in addition to the current curriculum. The school curriculum will be enriched with the themes of the project. Everyone will participate in the reception of delegations through interviews, shows and performances related to health. The activities will be will be carried out in full immersion, with methodologies such as Cooperative Learning; problem solving, non-formal education approaches. We will adopt inclusive teaching and educational methodologies that favor individual skills, enhancing the resources and differences of each one. At the end of the Project, the students will be positively critical to safeguard their health, they will have greater awareness of the problems related to food and sedentariness and follow the Mediterranean diet; they will learn to interpret and understand the food content labels.They will choose ecological foods and lead a more dynamic life. They will know how to express themselves with self esteem; write e-mails in other language; they will welcome the different and the foreigner; deepen the knowledge of their own popular traditions, grasp the positivity of traditions of other countries. The kindergarten children will be led to schooling. Families will be able to choose more consciously eating behaviors; they will be spokespersons and supporters of good practices towards the school community, their relatives and friends. Teachers will promote good practices even beyond the project; will be more familiar with ICT and languages; they will use multimedia products; they will know the educational organizations of other countries, they will know better the culture of other European nations. They will make new friends and will continue to keep in touch with their European colleagues. Healthy food and sport are common values in our countries, capable of breaking down many everyday stereotypes. We believe that our project will improve the relations between our nations.
This project has made a tremendous contribution to stem the growing problem of junk food consumption and of growing sedentary lifestyle. The countries that took part in the project were: ITALY, POLAND, GREECE, SWEDEN, ESTONIA, GERMANY. Everyone completed successfully the assigned tasks in the initial phase. The didactic path that followed was named by learning units marked in the timetable that strongly interested the pupils, finding in them the motivation and interest useful for a radical change in unhealthy life behaviours. The groups that took part in this project were: pupils, teachers, school staff, parents, public bodies; related associations, food producers; bio-farm managers; experienced professionals. About 9000 people were involved otherwise. The PUPILS who took part directly in the project were aged between 4 and 16 years. Among these, 50 pupils participated in the didactic activities abroad in presence and 50 in the virtual mobility. The TEACHERS began with a training in Germany for the correct start of the project, they kept direct contacts with their partner colleagues, participated in the intermediate and final verification activities, established friendships and professional collaborations that will continue after the project ends, laying the foundations for future European projects. The NON-TEACHING STAFF that were fully involved in the organizational, logistical support and dissemination of results were: PARENTS, LOCAL BODIES, NGOs and EXPERTS. With the outlined common path, the students learned to recognize healthy and ecological food, the prerogatives of the Mediterranean diet, the favourable peculiarities of each colour of fruit or vegetables. They now know how to read the information contained in food labels, they appreciate sport much more than ever before. They limit sedentary life for the advantage of outdoor activities and games; they go to school on foot or by bicycle when possible. They improved their digital skills and command of the English language. Furthermore, they learned to be positively critical about safeguarding their own health. For the teachers, the achieved results were: the exchange of good practices, the knowledge of the educational organizations of other countries from which they grasped the benefits. However, our priority was to adequately involve pupils with difficulties and socially deprived with the aim of transforming difficulties into small victories and the joy of attending school, which are essential prerequisites for promoting a healthy life. We involved all the students in all phases of the project, working hard on self-esteem and mastery of emotions; we made sure they learned by reflecting on the project topics and expressing their opinions. In all the learning units, the children worked in groups, dividing the tasks in both the research and laboratory phases. All partners collaborated actively: ITALY dedicated itself to general coordination; POLAND was responsible for managing the e-Twinning platform; GREECE oversaw the evaluation and assembled the digital "Health Cook Book"; ESTONIA was responsible for the project website, built a beautiful interactive game about the colours of fruit and vegetables; SWEDEN gave valuable insights into the dynamics of the reception of refugees; GERMANY took care of the training of the team of partner teachers on the dynamics that can make healthy and low-fat cooking enjoyable. We ensured a good management of the project thanks to the constant comparison between the realities of the various partner schools and the different experiences gained in them. We had no problems in the project's management, other than that of the pandemic! This was the most difficult time. After numerous online meetings, the international project team decided to pursue the topics of the project in distance learning. On the other hand, our students sent us photos and videos from home that documented the activities related to healthy cooking and fitness. We managed to carry out the meeting in Greece virtually. This was productive because teachers and pupils discovered new approaches to teaching and learning and a demanding task was undertaken to overcome the challenge that the school poses: transforming distance teaching into integrated digital teaching as a fundamental piece of teaching in a "new normal way". This path has made it possible to incorporate and share pedagogical guidelines regarding common aspects of our cultures, promoting intercultural issues, plurality of languages, social integration and inclusion. International meetings provided: • authentic and multiple functional learning to students; • an exchange of good practices between teachers who consolidated friendships, collaborations for cutting-edge teaching and ways of coping with new educational challenges and finally they • allowed families to make friends with each other in a meaningful way. The implementation of the project was accompanied by the evaluation processes through a systemic and multidimensional evaluation methodology. The phases of the skills' assessment were: initial, intermediate, final. The training courses were therefore evaluated both through quantitative tools, such as registers and survey forms, through qualitative techniques such as administration of ad hoc structured questionnaires, focus groups, interviews with students and teachers, activity reports, etc. To facilitate this educational and training path, we created an interactive game that had the function of consolidating specific learning about the colours of food and their properties through the game, available online. We also published a COOKBOOK, which became an online multimedia product, easily consulted by pupils and their families. These products became work tools in our schools and, together with the curriculum bent on the contents of the project, will ensure that the activities on the subject will be implemented for a long time even after the conclusion of this project. To conclude, we can say that our work has been extremely fruitful and effective because together we made our young European citizens more democratic, tolerant, aware and respectful of the values that distinguish our ancient civilization. We really believe we achieved the true spirit of Erasmus+ as we gave a push against individualism and nationalisms; an impulse towards inclusion and understanding, all in parallel between rationality and emotions.