In the age we live in, it is of great importance to make the teenage students be aware of the other cultures and countries, which is the starting point of this partnership. We desire our young students to have an idea abaout the world around them. Thus we name this project as ‘‘BRIDGING CULTURES’’. Through the project, teenager awereness about the different cultures will increase and they will learn to respect for these diversities. They will have an idea about the multilingual and multicultural structure of European Union with a variety of enjoyable activities related with each others daily life, family relationships, their schools, new year celebrations, tourist attractions, school traditions, school songs, important days, proverbs, handcrafts, their countries and their heroes in history, native languages and books throughout the project. All these activites will reinforce the idea of Europen citizenship among the staff and pupils. This cooperation will allow us to exchange experiences to discover distinctive features of social, economic and cultural diversity of the participating contries developing understanding each other. Therefore, all the activites are prepared to promote creativity and autonomous learning through investigation, comparison and enabling the acquisition of key competences. We also hope that our students will have the chance to use English and ICT in their daily life in an effective and effecient way. The project is of great value in that it will motivate the students and the teachers at the same time. All the students in the partner schools are the main target group of our project. They are aged between 14 and 18 years and will benefit from the transnational activities in an effective way. Only by getting acquainted with customs and traditions, linguistic similarities and cultural characteristics it is possible to develop mutual transnational values and impart awareness of European citizenship. Comparison, research and experience of this collaboration across national boundaries will highlight shared roots and values and in thus help educating our students to European-minded citizens who are not afraid to act as bridge builders for a better future in Europe. Each of the project activities will be dealt with in each term of the two years at every school, by presentations and virtual mobilities, via Skype-conferences and by experiencing the different key aspects during the six transnational meetings. The impact of "BRIDGING CULTURES" for all participants and target groups will be manifold and sustainable. The most important ones are as follows: - getting to know language and culture of different European regions - deepening of identity by comparison with partner schools - recognition of universal roots and values which will lead to an enhanced awareness of European citizenship - improvement of linguistic competences by communication with students from the partner schools - increase of self-confidence and personal responsibility by staying with host families - insight into European school systems and teaching methods - exchange about paedagogical concepts and educational varieties The cooperation with new schools will lead to new insights into school systems, curricula and teaching methods. The project coordinators and all the staff at the six participating schools can build on their experience gained in previous projects and collaborations and enlarge their spectrum of teaching and learning techniques. The use of the latest technological facilities (Skype,Hangouts) will enable virtual student mobilities with a larger number of participants in addition to active student mobilities during the transnational project meetings. The participating students will not only broaden their horizon, improve their social and linguistic skills and their IT-competences, but also overcome national boundaries and build bridges between borders instead.
Project context: In the age we live in, it is very important to make teenagers aware of other cultures and countries, which is the starting point of this partnership. So through the project we wanted our young students to have an idea about the world around them. Therefore, we called this project "BRIDGING CULTURES". The project helped increase adolescents' respect for different cultures, they understood and learned how to respect cultural diversity. Throughout the project, students formed an idea about the multilingual and multicultural structure of the European Union, through a variety of enjoyable activities related to daily life, the importance of cultural heritage, their schools / school traditions, ancient customs, main attractions. tourism, school songs, important days, ancient proverbs and sayings, historical books, crafts, about their countries and heroes over time and native languages. They had the opportunity to identify linguistic similarities and differences and to make connections between the traditions and customs of other peoples. Thus, the students aged between 14 and 18+ years represented our target group, with the mention that a special school was included in the consortium, so that through the joint activities the young people with disabilities established friendly relations with the young people without disabilities being a plus to the level of society, as we have contributed to the process of social integration of deficient adolescents and to the awareness of the general public. By becoming familiar with customs, traditions, linguistic similarities and cultural characteristics, young people have developed mutual transnational values and become aware of what EU citizenship means. The comparison, research and experience of this collaboration beyond national borders have contributed both to highlighting cultural roots, common values, but also to educating our students as European citizens who are not afraid to act for the development of cultural ties. "BRIDGING CULTURES" for a better future in Europe. Project objectives Students: * knew languages and cultures from different European regions; * deepened what cultural identity means in comparison with partner schools; * had the opportunity to recognize the roots and understand the richness offered by cultural heritage; * awareness of European citizenship and the opportunities offered by the Erasmus program in the situation where they want to pursue higher education at EU level; * recognition of the roots and universal values that have led to a better awareness of European citizenship; * students have improved their language skills by communicating with students in partner schools. Teachers: * exchanged good practices and established new relations of cooperation and collaboration; * knew the education system at EU level and teaching methods; * exchanged experience about pedagogical concepts and educational varieties. Project activities: The project activities contributed to the consolidation of the idea of European citizenship both on the students and on the teachers. Through international cooperation, participants had the opportunity to exchange experience to discover distinctive features of the social, economic and cultural diversity of the partner countries, which also developed through mutual understanding and joint activities. Therefore, all activities were prepared to promote creativity and autonomous learning through investigation, comparison and enabling the acquisition of key competencies. By participating in mobilities with physical but also virtual participation, adolescents had the chance to develop their linguistic and technological skills so as to use them in an efficient and constructive way. Within the project, 6 mobilities were provided in each partner school. But, due to the pandemic generated by COVID 19, our students had the opportunity to physically participate in 5 meetings and in a virtual mobility. Long-term benefits: New cooperative relationships have been developed with partner schools. By establishing communication and cooperation relationships, teachers maintain constant contact by exchanging opinions, impressions, opinions about the current educational system, about teaching programs and methods, especially during this period when many students learn in the online system. For a period of 6 months, we proposed that each partner school organize a workshop with teaching materials as the results of the project. Also, the teachers will introduce the results of the project as teaching material within the extracurricular activities. Each school will make available to the school library CDs in which the products made at the project level will be found.