Save our Seas

Project summary

In October 2018 the publication of a landmark report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity had just 12 years to avert the consequences of catastrophic climate change, with worsening food shortages, rising sea levels, floods and wildfires. After the publication of this report young people especially in Europe took the initiative to fight climate change and to raise public interest in this topic. As European citizens, we like the idea of establishing an active exchange of good practice with other European schools on such an urgent issue like the protection of the environment. The participating schools are closely related to one of the marine areas in Europe and therefore confronted with the risks to the marine ecosystem. Thus we have chosen the topic "Save our Seas". The environmental topic which brought young people on the streets demonstrates that adolescents wish to participate in democratic decision taking and politics. They also show an interest in the protection of the seas. Therefore we would like to provide our students and our teachers with 21st century skills and thus enable them to participate in social and environmental issues. The Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium has already implemented several environmental programmes in its teaching and its school profile. We would like to share our ideas with our European partners and develop new modules which add to profiles and teaching programmes in the participating schools. This project aims to enhance learning and innovation, digital literacy as well as the main career and life skills. With mobilities we will implement a way of teaching the "4 C's" throughout our project, namely critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication and collaboration. Teachers will share ideas on 21st century learning and will develop new approaches and modules together. The objective of the EU Marine Directive is to achieve a good environmental status (GES) of the EU’s marine water by 2020. Furthermore it points out that the protection of the resource base upon which marine-related economic and social activities depend is vital. Through our project we wish to make students aware of the importance of oceans as a means to facilitate both trade and to connect people of different cultural backgrounds comparing recent links (EU) to historic ones (e.g. Phoenicians, Roman Empire and the Hanseatic League). Being located in a coastal areas near the mouth of a river the regions of the participating schools share certain geographical and biological similarities. Such similarities can also be seen in the historical development of these regions and even in former trade routes. Each partner represents a different coastal region of Europe - Italy the Mediterrenean Sea, Portugal the Atlantic Ocean, Germany the North Sea and the historical connection to the Baltic Sea, Lithuania the Baltic Sea and Bulgaria the Black Sea - with its unique cultural heritage as well as its special fauna and flora. Europe will not achieve a sustainable management of seas and oceans unless citizens understand the influence of the rivers and oceans on their lives, and how their behaviour can have an impact on marine ecosystems. The project aims to establish a fundamental understanding of and close relationship with the sea, by empowering students to take direct and sustainable action towards healthy oceans, healthy communities and ultimately a healthy planet. Our main objectives are the following: - to foster critical thinking of our students and teach 21st century skills; - to raise the students`' awareness of different cultural backgrounds in regard to the sea and the historical and recent international links of different coastal regions in Europe; - to teach future environmentally friendly European citizens; - to acquire an in-depth-knowledge of the marine ecosystem and wildlife in coastal areas and the impact of modern society on them; - to improve the key compentences in language learning (English); - to train student teachers who pass their gained knowledge to other students, parents and to members of their local communities; - to improve students' and teachers' language and ICT skills; - to set up a blog, website and booklets and to run workshops to familiarise other students, parents and locals with ways of protecting our sea and coastal areas; - to set up a "Save our Seas" protocol at the participating schools. for the participating schools: -to establish links to other European schools; - to create new school partnerships that share their expertise (e.g. Lise-Meitner-Gymnasium environmentally-friendly profile providing a course in environmental management); - to develop new bilingual cross-curricular teaching modules (STE(A)M); - to introduce a way of sustainable teaching methods (student teachers, train the trainer); - to evaluate and implement new innovative research-based teaching methods and ICT in the curriculum.