Context: We are living in a digital world and digitalization and working with computers have become the key words of education at schools. We - the project partners from Valencia (Spain), Riviere Salee (Martinique, France) and Mosbach (Germany) - as modern schools want to be part of this change and provide the opportunity to our students to discover new areas of learning and also get to know themselves from a different perspective. Description: In the Erasmus+ project "Robots Go Green!" the students construct a greenhouse that is supervised by a robot which they programme themselves. We want to bring the digital world closer to stu and motivate them to try coding themselves. Discussing environmental issues such as pollution, droughts, feeding the world etc. are part of the curricula of all schools. By designing and constructing a greenhouse and by coding a robot that runs the greenhouse, the stu are required to combine their knowledge about environmental problems with coding. They have the possibility to create something new that can be a solution to many problems that food production has to deal with and create something that makes a change. The objectives/activities/results are to: - Work in international student groups during the whole project time - Find out about environmenal issues connected to food production (also characteristic of every country involved) and make learning videos about it - Grow plants in a greenhouse - Code a robot that can run a greenhouse (and measure the aridity/humidity of the soil; water the plants from a tank etc.); stu that have higher coding skills or are fast learners are asked to develop their robot even further and find a way to run the robot with alternative sources of energy (e.g. solar panels) = individual support for students. - Create manuals as eBooks that describe how the robots were coded so that other stu/teachers can repeat the project - Create online CLIL exercises connected to the topic - Present the work in form of a science slam/song - Establish a partnership between schools, universities, companies from our areas. We plan on one short-term joint staff training event + three short-term exchanges of groups of pupils (one in every country). Methodology: A huge variety of methods will be used: - Bilingual teaching (CLIL), ball-bearing, question and answer, mental modeling, discovery learning, inquiry based learning, flipped classroom, collaborative learning, experiment, learning by teaching, debate, interview, co-planning, practical goal-oriented co-operation, information exchange, science slam/song as a method of presenting one's work. - Individual support of stu is provided. We also want to: - Actively involve stu in their own learning - Help stu to develop a conceptual framework as well as to develop problem solving skills - Promote stu discussion and group activities/creativity - Assess students' understanding at frequent intervals throughout the learning process - Help stu experience science in varied, interesting and enjoyable ways. Participants: Between 27-30 students and 2-3 teachers are included in every exchange. The country that hosts the exchange will want to include even more stu and teachers to organize the event. Staff of the companies and universities that are our partners will also be present during some time of the exchange. The students are between 16-19 years old and of different educational background. The teachers involved teach Computer Science, Physics, Nutritional Science, English, Spanish, Economics, German, Music. Both stud and teachers are willing to use English (and in some parts also Spanish) as a lingua franca, to be actively involved in the project, are open-minded and accept cultural diversity. Impact and longer term benefits: By creating and programming a robot that runs a greenhouse in an international group, students enhance their coding/ICT skills and this goes hand in hand with gaining intercultural competences. Basic skills and key competences such as working in groups, problem solving skills, critical thinking, promoting creativity, language skills, STEM knowledge, knowledge about environment and climate change develop and improve all at the same time as this project embraces so many different fields of education. The stud will discover a different part of themselves and see themselves from a different perspective, thus understand themselves and consequently others better. Both stu and teachers are motivated to be an active part of Europe and to promote European values. But not only the stu broaden their ICT skills, also the teachers will gain more knowledge about the competences that are required for an up-to-date teaching. This is in line with the Digital Competence Framework for Educators. As a result of the project the robots, greenhouses, manuals as eBooks, learning videos and CLIL exercises will remain. This is of benefit when we want to repeat the project with other students.
We were able to start the project in 2019 as planned, the teachers' meeting could take place, all stakeholders were visited and the respective responsibilities were determined. The first meeting in Martinique in February 2020 could also be held. The presentations of the schools at the beginning could be delivered. The international groups of students could plan their ideas for their greenhouses, present their sketches of the greenhouses they had designed via TinkerCad, and they could explain which vegetables should be grown in the respective country and which robots should be built. All the international groups presented themselves to a group of scientists from Martinique, who came together at the end of the week to listen to the students' presentations and also to give talks about their areas of expertise. After the meeting, however, came the Corona pandemic and school closures. Martinique was particularly affected by these measures. The French school remained closed for more than half a year, partly because of the pandemic, but also because of a teachers' strike. Due to this situation, we decided to extend our project by half a year. In October 2020, we organised a three-day robotics seminar at the Augusta Bender School with the support of Dr. Schnirch and his students from the PH Heidelberg – a teacher training college. During these three days, 46 11th grade students from our vocational high school learned about the Arduino computer programme for programming robots on the one hand and the Raspberry Pi computer on the other. With the respective computers, our students built robots for greenhouses with sensors for C02 and O2 content of the air, air and soil humidity, temperature measurements and more. Films and pictures on the TwinSpace give impressions of the results of the workshop: (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1264262 https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1263796). In Spain, students built robots, programmed them to work in a greenhouse and also built the greenhouse for it (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1654563). In Martinique, a robot was constructed as well (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/93759/pages/page/1674386), although it was particularly difficult to carry out the planned activities there due to the strikes and the pandemic in Martinique. Because of the pandemic, we had to plan the meeting in Spain online in May 2021. Since we did not know whether we would be able to meet in October 2021, we brought forward the activity "Science Slams" from the third to the second project meeting. Carolin Nistler organised the science slam workshop with the professional help of lecturer Max Wetterauer from the PH Heidelberg. Four international student groups were formed. Before the online project meeting, the groups met twice online with Ms Nistler and Mr Wetterauer. It was explained how a Science Slam is constructed, the students' work was supervised and their texts were reviewed. This workshop was very enriching for all students and they learned a lot about creative writing and how to explain a scientific topic in an exciting way. In the second project meeting, which now had to take place online, the international student groups were able to complete their science slams. At the online meeting, two workshops on quizzes and the environment were organised by the Spanish school and a workshop on robotics and the computer programme TinkerCad was organised by the French school. The problem here, however, was the technical equipment. The internet connection in Martinique was only possible in one room and only temporarily. Not all internet connections in Spain were working either. Nevertheless, the students were able to complete their tasks and present the results on the third day. Between the second and third project meeting, we collected our results and uploaded them to the TwinSpace. Newspaper articles were also written and we were proud of ourselves for having held a meeting despite the pandemic. Before the third meeting in Germany, all students were able to provide robots to bring to Germany. In Germany, six international groups could be formed: four groups created videos for each of the four science slam texts, one workshop dealt with the topic of nutrition and environment in the three different countries, and one workshop programmed an app for driving a robot in a greenhouse. We were able to successfully conduct all workshops in presence with a total of 46 pupils and seven teachers and present our results at the PH in Heidelberg in a lecture hall in front of teacher trainees. During our project week, we also participated in the Code Week Baden-Württemberg and uploaded our activities there in a blog.