The common history of the European countries meets us at every turn and has a great impact on the present. We want every project participant – but first and foremost the students – to become aware of our common European heritage. They should become able to identify potentially dangerous developments and problems, so that they can stand up for peace and unity. However, you can only identify problems when you have the necessary background knowledge that enables you to make the right judgements. Thus, we will focus on our history as well as on the history of our partners, showing the mutual interdependencies. The students should learn the importance of an active EU citizen. The objective of the project is an increase in knowledge and intercultural competence. The project will most certainly serve this objective as we will work together respectfully breaking down prejudices. When we work together in teams, democracy will be promoted. Furthermore, the participants will understand the need to learn foreign languages. We are going to explore historic sites and monuments making us aware of the European heritage. One part of the project is that students design and do city tours themselves. That should make clear to them that history, tourism and economic growth go together. Teachers teaching history, languages, geography, the arts, social studies, religious education and information technology are involved in the project at each participating school. Students aged between 14 – 17 years will work on the various projects and five students from each school will join the meetings. The city of Waldkraiburg as well as the museum in Komarno support the project. The students will be working on the project in their regular school lessons or in special Erasmus teams. At international meetings, the students will be working in international teams. To make sure that students with special needs have equal opportunities, special attention will be given to those participants enabling them to join the international meetings. We have chosen this particular age group because those students have a sufficient command of the English language. In addition to that, students at that age are facing a challenging time in their lives. The project strengthens their self-confidence and self-reliance. They will experience that school can be fun, and that school is a way of finding international friends. Furthermore, the will meet their teachers in a relaxed environment. This should encourage those students who struggle at school and are at the risk of dropping out to finish their education. At the beginning of the project we are going to create a website on eTwinning where we are presenting our results. Teachers and students alike are going to communicate via eTwinning. Each school is going to have an Erasmus pinboard to inform everybody about the latest developments. Besides, each school is creating a logo for the project, and a contest is going to determine the final logo for our project. Each school is doing projects with respect to historic sites in its district. The results will be available via QR-codes to all people visiting the site. In Spain, they will broadcast on the radio interviews on past and present events. In this way, students and teachers alike will be working with modern media, such as mp3, podcasts, videos and social networks. The project will be evaluated with a questionnaire and a Kahoot quiz. The highlight of the project is, of course, the teamwork in the participating countries. A book that will be designed by all participants will show the history of each place and make the historic connections clear. After its finalisation, it will be on display in the different school libraries. The city tour with its QR-codes on metal plates has long-term benefits for the city of Waldkraiburg. The same holds true for our eTwinning website as it will be linked to all websites of the participating schools.
The history of Europe is connected to all European countries and has an impact on our present. We wanted all those involved in the project to be prepared to stand up for a peaceful and common Europe. You can recognise problems if you have background knowledge and only then can you come to a differentiated judgement. In this way, we increased historical knowledge, showed the interconnectedness of the countries in Europe and made clear the importance of active EU citizenship. The aim of our project was to gain knowledge, to work together and to get to know each other in order to reduce prejudices and to build mutual respect. Through teamwork, the experience of other cultures and the realisation of the need to learn foreign languages was increased. By getting to know many historical monuments, the value of the European cultural heritage was recognised and through the development of city guides, the European cultural heritage was recognised as a job engine in the field of tourism. Our project involved teachers from all partner schools in the subjects of history, languages, geography, art, social studies, religion, ICT and economics. Pupils aged 14-17 worked on the project topics at each partner school and five pupils each accompanied the project meetings. However, only 2 meetings could be held due to the Corona pandemic. External partners were the City and City Museum of Waldkraiburg, the Museum of Komarno and the Europa Museum in Schengen. The topics were developed in the respective subjects or in separate Erasmus working groups. At international meetings, the pupils worked on the common tasks in an international class. Pupils with handicaps were especially included and encouraged to participate in the project work. One of the aims of our project was also to ensure equal opportunities and to prevent disadvantaging pupils with special difficulties. The age of the pupils was chosen because pupils in this age group once have sufficient English skills to participate in an exchange and because pupils in this age group are in a difficult phase of life. Through the project, the pupils' self-confidence and independence were strengthened, they learned that school can be fun, that new friends can also be made abroad and the pupils got to know teachers in a different way and perhaps in a more relaxed way. This should help students who are thinking about dropping out of school to make the decision to go to school and learn. From the beginning of the project, we created a website on eTwinning where we presented all the results.eTwinning was used to share results. The easiest way for participants to communicate with each other was through Whatsapp groups. An Erasmus wall was created at each school to display the project and current events. Logos were created, which were then democratically evaluated via a vote on the internet. The winning logo from Slovakia personalised our results. The schools introduced themselves to each other in presentations and videos. At each school location, hist. At the first meeting, a multilingual city tour was developed and transferred into QR codes. In the partner countries, interviews with parents, grandparents and famous personalities from everyday life are used to gain insights into historical experiences and expected experiences, and these are developed as contributions and presented to an interested audience via radio, exhibitions and publications on the Internet, Facebook and Instagram of the school. In this way, pupils and teachers are also familiarised with modern communication techniques (mp3, podcasts, presentation apps, videos, film, social networks). For the evaluation of the project, in addition to online questionnaires for the teachers, a Wordcloud with the pupils' impressions and a Padlet with the personal feedback of the participating Erasmus+ teams were created. A special highlight of the activities were the meetings in the partner countries with the joint cooperation. In a joint book, the history of each place becomes clear and the connection with the other countries visible. The city tour with QR codes in the form of a flyer to special places has a long-term benefit for the city of Waldkraiburg and can be used for tourism purposes. Our eTwinning website has been linked to the school homepage at each school so that it is also present there and can be viewed in the long term.The team at the Europa Museum Schengen will use the jointly created rally on the topic of the Schengen area and Schengen space for other groups of pupils as an educational activity.