#BeyourownSuperEco. In times of Greta Thunberg speaking up for our environment, thereby leading thousands of pupils onto the streets to protest during school days it is maybe more important than ever to support our pupils in the process of saving our planet. Greta has caused a wave of protest that has easily crossed borders and is now a very present aspect of our students’ lives. The children say that it is our responsibility as adults to bequeath a planet to them that is worth living on. This is where our project gains its momentum. We want to support the children in this process. We want to give them a platform to actively think about their and our future on this planet – and this on an international level. Every nation partaking in our project, every school, every teacher, and most importantly every student has their own very unique set of skills, ideas, and experience which make them all so indispensable. We all can learn from each other. The German school has a school garden-project which has been priced by the school authorities. The school in the Netherlands wants to have that, too. They on the other hand have solar panels installed on their school roof and produce their own energy. The French school has a wind energy plant, but still needs to find their way of dealing with trash. The Swedish school has started with stations of waist sorting and they don´t use any plastic cups. They try to engage students to take more responsibility regarding the environment. But in the electricity, comparing with other countries is still cheap in Sweden and it’s harder to motivate yang people to save energy. They have engaged three classes in a project at the natural science program to work with waist and energy saving and that’s why the school now is having the waist sorting stations and non-plastic cups. Students are also doing excursions in the nature taking samples and evaluate the results in order to see the health of the nature. They still have to and want to work more about these issues, and they need to evolve students to care about their future. We can only save our environment together, but every single nation, school, teacher, and student needs to partake in this endeavour. Germany needs two nuclear power plants per year to produce the energy which is needed to have electronic devices rest in stand-by-mode. This shows how important it is to raise an awareness in every single person for their impact on our environment. In order for this to be successful we need to assess from where we start. Measuring one’s carbon footprint is a good start. From there we try and find ways to lower this footprint step by step. Even if the project teachers have plenty of ideas on what to do, the aim should be that the students themselves find their way. What do they think works well in their home country or their school so that they can teach their knowledge to the other groups? Where do they see issues and how do they want to tackle them? What do they want to learn from their peers in other countries? Every visit focuses on one major aspect of our environment. While in Germany the students will assess their water consumption; in the Netherlands they will focus on energy consumption (???); in France they will focus on Feeding and Recycling food; in Sweden the aim will be to increase peoples awereness on recycling and non-plastic. Then we have projects that will be done in every nation during every visit. For example Plogging [= neologism of the Swedish word plocka (= to pick up/collect) and the English word jogging]. A common run that includes the collecting of waste combines benefit with fun and increases the students’ awareness for their environment and the amount of waste that ends up in nature. We need heroes and heroines like Greta Thunberg to step up and speak up. We want to enable every single student to be their own superhero*in – supereco. We have chosen this theme as it directly connects to the student’s everyday life. They are familiar with superheroes and -heroines from all universes (mainly Marvel and DC). But why not transform “The Guardians of the Galaxy” into “The Guardians of the Milky Way”? Why not use the Hulk’s green strength? Why not use “Green Lantern”’s imaginative powers? Would it not be nice if at the end of our project every single student has designed their own supereco-alterego on a shirt made from old clothing? Would it not be nice if every single student has lowered their carbon footprint and during this process learned how to teach others to follow in their footsteps? Producing educational material for other Erasmus+-groups, for schools, for parents, teachers, administration and passers by on the street that helps every single person to actively change the world is the aim of the project #BeyourownSuperEco.
Meeting teachers 14.10.-16.10.19 (Frankfurt a.M.) The first teachers' meeting took place in October 2019 in Frankfurt. The main goal was to coordinate the project and to get to know the TwinSpace and e-twinning platforms. During the meeting, the process of the project was discussed in more detail; the topics of the individual exchanges were determined and the dates of the trips were narrowed down. Furthermore, ideas were collected on how the individual student trips could be designed. Special focus was put on the topic "water", since this should be the focus of the first exchange in January. In addition, the further procedure up to this meeting was discussed; the individual schools should already introduce the topic with their students in a small project work. In addition, the meeting was used to get to know TwinSpace and e-twinning. There was an internal training conducted by the representatives of the Swedish school. They had already used it and supported the rest of the teachers in creating accounts and setting up a project page and how to use the platform. This was to be used for communication as well as for recording results. The functions of the platforms were explored together and the first steps were taken in designing the project group. In addition, a lecture on the topic of "Development of Sustainability" was attended at the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Meeting students 27.01.-31.01.20 (Frankfurt a.M.) The first meeting of students took place in January 2020 on the topic of "Water". The individual schools had already conducted research on this topic in advance, so that it was possible to build on the previous knowledge. Over the five days, various activities were organized to deepen the students' knowledge of the topic of water, including presentations by the schools on the results of their research, a workshop that showed, among other things, the path of a bottle of water and where different types of water could be tested, and a tour of the municipal drainage system. In preparation for this visit, technical terms were worked out in the national languages of the participants as well as in English. There was also a workshop by Greenpeace on waste prevention and recycling. Other activities served to get to know each other and strengthen the group feeling, for example a scavenger hunt in which environmentally related places in the city of Frankfurt had to be found and a group challenge in which water had to be transported by hand in buckets from the Main to the school. The students also designed various logos, the best of which was chosen and printed on group shirts by the Schillerschule's student company. All results were recorded by the students on self-designed pages, which were repeatedly worked on in work phases throughout the week and later collected and posted on TwinSpace. The aim was both to secure the results of the acquired contents and to make the acquired knowledge available to others. The topic of the exchange week and the project in general complements the curricula of all participating schools, as environmental aspects and taking responsibility are obligatory topics in the upper school. Furthermore, the students were able to deepen their language skills and intercultural knowledge. How was the project continued afterwards? After the first exchange, several online meetings took place between the teachers and the students. The former focused on planning further exchanges and later on possible continuation of the project despite the Corona pandemic, the latter on the conclusion of the topic "water". In order to stay in touch and on topic, it was decided at an online meeting of the teachers that each school would design tasks that could be worked on digitally by all and published on TwinSpace. The Schillerschule set the tasks to look again at the personal carbon footprint as well as to write a Corona Diary and publish the results on TwinSpace. In this way, all participants were able to gain an insight into the pandemic situation in the respective partner countries and create occasions for communication. Finally, the students of the Schillerschule engaged in an online discussion on the question "Corona - curse or blessing for the environment? Unfortunately, the different Covid starting points in the individual countries did not allow for further joint actions or tasks. Why was the project cancelled during Corona? This was mainly due to the school closures, which made communication between schools and students difficult and further trips impossible. Due to the increased cancellation of classes and the unfamiliar situation of online classes, the focus was placed on maintaining a normal school day as much as possible. It was considered to extend the project, but since some of the students would then have been preparing for their Abitur or would have already left school, this idea was discarded as impractical. The contact with the partner schools has not broken off, but has decreased due to the inactivity of the project. We are trying to make a new project start or a new project for the next application period.