Context Nowadays children mostly live within the four walls of their flats, houses and schools. Kids and teenagers spend most of the time inside because of , for example, city migration, lots of homework, development of technology, or parents’ fear against meeting bad strangers outside. Because of that, children are less and less acquainted with the nature and that may also render them less responsible for the environment in the future. There is much evidence that nature has lots of positive benefits on children’s psychological and physical development and well-being, such as reduction of stress, better health, better creativity and concentration. More free time and contact with nature could also positively affect children’s ability to focus in the classroom or to learn more effectively at home. According to research, the experience of discovering and exploring the nature is one of the most effective ways in which children can gain knowledge about different subjects. Based on these findings and the need to find alternative ways of improving students’ performance at schools, we have invented this project hoping to attain the desired outcomes and then be able to share them among other schools in our regions and around Europe. We made a decision to work together on this project with other schools from other countries also because we are interested in observing how students from other countries interact with the nature and also how schools deal with the problem of students’ spending too much time at their homes. Our main aims are: 1. To improve teachers’ competences in designing outdoor activities and integrating them in regular school life 2. To enable teachers from the EU countries to cooperate together and produce common results which could be further used in their schools, and also in other schools 3. To promote nature as an effective learning environment 4. To improve skills and competences acquisition by students 5. To make parents aware that time spent by children outdoors is very important 6. To develop students’ and teachers’ critical thinking and intercultural competences 7. To develop communication and interpersonal skills among the participants of the project. Participants Teachers (3/country/LTTA) will participate in transnational events in order to meet their colleagues from partner countries. There, they will be able to try out their methods, compare the methods of different educational systems, take part in cultural events and activities and finally disseminate the information to local community. Activities C1 – Learning outdoors – current trends in Europe (organized in Spain in Nov 2018) C2 – Nature activities and numeracy (Turkey in Feb 2019) C3 – Nature activities and literacy (Poland in May 2019) C4 – Nature activities and science (Czechia in Oct 2019) C5 – Nature activities and the exploration of the self through arts and crafts (IT in Mar 2020) Results - Report on nature-related activities performed on a regular basis at schools, together with their aims, purposes and methodology, as well as the frequency of such activities (as discussed during LTTA1) - Collection of activities aiming to develop numeracy that could be performed outdoors (as presented during LTTA2) - Collection of outdoor activities to develop literacy (LTTA3) - Collection of outdoor activities to enable the study of sciences (LTTA4) - Collection of outdoor activities to increase self-awareness and self-expression through arts and crafts (LTTA5) All the above-mentioned collections will be placed together in the final result of the project, “Getting students outside – ideas for outdoor activities in order to improve school performance”. - 5 newsletters, one after every transnational meeting, which will also be disseminated. - A brochure with photographs and information about all partner countries to be handed out in the schools and exhibited in every school’s Erasmus+ corner - The project website - Certificates of participation - Students’ work - photographs of our activities Impact As an outcome of this project, partner schools will strengthen their relationship with parents, students and teachers. There will be better relationship among all the mentioned groups, because all groups will be directly involved in the project. This will be surely beneficial for all schools in the long run. We also hope the project will make our cooperation with parents better. The better atmosphere at schools will lead to more students wanting to join the schools as the schools will become attractive in the local communities. The teachers will brush up their skills, which translates into better quality of teaching at schools, which in turn results in better results of students. In the same way, students’ motivation will increase, they will enjoy learning better, which is yet another benefit for every school.
Context Nowadays children and teenagers mostly live in their flats, houses and schools. Because of that, children are less acquainted with nature and responsible for the environment. Richard Louv wrote: “Time in nature is not leisure time; it’s an essential investment in our children’s health.” The teachers of the involved countries carefully thought about these ideas and implemented the project working on the lessons and on detailed studies. Objectives 1 Improve teachers’ competences in designing outdoor activities and integrating them in regular school life 2 Enable teachers from the EU countries to cooperate together and produce common results which could be further used in their schools, and also in other schools 3 Promote nature as an effective learning environment 4 Improve skills and competences acquisition by students 5 Make parents aware that time spent by children outdoors is very important 6. Develop students’ and teachers’ critical thinking and intercultural competences 7 Develop communication and interpersonal skills among the participants of the project. Activity: All the partners equally shared the duties of the Project. Duties were divided among partners according to their role, expertise, and possibilities in the project. Each partner developed activities according to the topic. After returning from the meeting, each partner disseminated the results and activities across their schools and outside to the local community. C1 Teachers talked about current tendencies in different systems of education in terms of outdoor activities. Each team prepared presentations of their educational systems, provided information and examples of regularly performed outdoor activities, carried out small-scale school-based surveys with the aim of finding out how much time students actually spend outdoors in a week. C1 enabled the teams to compose the information together, compare and analyze them, and draw conclusions about the current tendencies in our schools. C2 The aim of the meeting was to meet to carry out activities with students and notice the impact/satisfaction and compare the activities with others in terms of appropriateness, efficacy. The activities’ objective was to develop students’ numeracy skills and were carried out outside, in the fresh air. C3. The activities’ objective was to teach LITERACY through outdoor activities. C4 The activities’ objective was to teach science through outdoor activities In C5 due to the problems related to the COVID pandemic, the National Agency granted an extension of 6 months. The activities’ objective was to teach Arts and Crafts. Due to organizational problems related to COVID it was not possible to make pupils interact and make them move easily so asynchronous lessons were organized with students. Results: Cooperation among teachers has always been characterized by support, understanding and sharing of every aspect of the project. Probably the greatest challenge that we faced was the spread of the COVID19 and how to cope with its problems. We used a variety of evaluation tools during the whole duration of the project in order to determine whether or not the objectives were met. The impact was checked by means of conversation, observation, questionnaires and surveys given to teachers, students, parents, and other participants. These tools gave us a clear idea of whether or not the project was successful and whether or not it had any impact on any of the target groups Long term benefits As an outcome of this project, partner schools strengthened their relationship with parents, students and teachers. For sure there is a better relationship among all the mentioned groups because all groups were directly involved in the project. This will be surely beneficial for all schools in the long run. The project also made school cooperation with parents better. The better atmosphere at schools led to more students wanting to join the schools as the schools are now more attractive in the local communities. The teachers brushed up their skills, which translated into more qualitative teaching at schools. In the same way, students’ motivation increased, they enjoyed learning better, which is yet another benefit for every school. There was a tightening of bonds between the school and its local community. By implementing Erasmus+ projects, schools got an international dimension in their daily activity – Don Milani School, for example, got the title of “Unesco School “. Today, as never before, we are facing the need to mitigate the risks of Covid-19 transmission. Our project is more relevant than ever. To reopen the schools after strict Covid-19 lockdown, teaching outside is one of the solutions being suggested to help kids return safely to class. The need to work in contact with nature appears increasingly urgent and necessary. This project has opened the way to qualitatively better use of the possibilities of outdoor teaching.