As international co-operations are constantly gaining importance and are considered a decisive element in global economy, we consider European topics crucial in education. This also includes intercultural and language competences. To foster the students´ understanding of different cultures, to give them a chance to acquire relevant language skills and to learn about different methods and approaches in the respective countries, the Berufskolleg Hilden des Kreises Mettmann and the Institut de Vic have started a co-operation. Both schools have courses focusing on technology, business and biology and we would like to use the expertise to set up a joint project in urban gardening to construct and run a self-sufficient green house. The project will take 12 months and involve about 150 students of various courses. 30 students will be given the chance to take part in two transnational meetings in which the different groups will present the results of their work and plan, design and optimize their project. The students involved are 16-19 years old. Communication throughout the project will be in English or if possible Spanish and we will use the e-twinning platform for communication between the meetings. Together the participants will have to talk about their results, document decisions and give reasons for the strategies they decide to use. The co-operation is based on the process and also the product. The students in home economics (Germany) and gardening (Spain) decide on plants and herbs that they frequently use when preparing food. The lab technicians (Germany) and the gardening students (Spain) also deal with the structure of the plants, the ideal conditions for growth and cultivation. The students of the engineering course are responsible for programming the microcontroller Arduino that will regulate the processes in the greenhouse automatically. The students in business studies/ trade and marketing develop a marketing strategy based on the characteristics of the product. After having finished the last tasks, the first transnational meeting to present and optimize the results will take place in Hilden. We have planned two transnational meetings as both greenhouses will differ according to different conditions (temperature, humidity) in the two countries and will thus require different constructions and setups. The project is intended to - offer our students the chance to participate in international meetings - enable them to get to know different cultures and mentalities and thus broaden their understanding of cultural differences and similarities -improve their communicative skills in at least one foreign language and use English as lingua franca to discuss ideas, procedures and methods to be used - improve their social competences like working in a team, dealing with different systems of values, taking decisions and making judgements - experience a “real-life” set up in which experts in different subjects cooperate interdisciplinary and internationally. All these aims shall be achieved throughout the project in written and spoken communication online and during the actual meetings. The project aims at - improving the knowledge on urban gardening by combining scientific and economic aspects. The fully-automated greenhouse will be continuously used in both schools to cultivate plants and herbs that will be used for food preparation by our own students and the canteen respectively. The results of the project will be published on the schools´ websites. Information will also be given to the local press that will also be invited to participate in elements of the transnational meetings.
The aim of the project was to motivate the students to work together internally on the subject of "urban gardening". The interdisciplinary approach promoted interdisciplinary skills, social interaction and mutual appreciation in the spirit of the European idea. For this purpose, various educational programs with profile-building subjects in the areas of nutrition and supply, biology, technology and economics worked on the planning and conception of a self-sufficient greenhouse. The greenhouse was no longer realized due to the school being closed due to the corona pandemic. Our project should extend over 12 months and involve around 150 students. In the end, however, project work only took place for 4 months, until the beginning of March, as the school then closed. 30 students should have the opportunity to optimize their work at two project meetings in international teams. However, as already mentioned, this no longer took place. The students involved in the project were between 16 and 20 years old. The students of various educational programs at BK Hilden coordinated with the corresponding educational program from Vic via eTwinning in Spanish or English, presented and documented their results and explained their approach. The students of the nutrition and housekeeping course in Hilden and the students of the nursery in Vic first selected a plant that they often need in the production of food. The biological technical assistants in Hilden and the students from the nursery now dealt with the structure of the selected plant, the ideal time of sowing and the ideal conditions for cultivation and keeping. The students of the technical high school in Hilden and the mechanization in Vic then took over the programming of a microcontroller, through which all processes in the greenhouse should be controlled fully automatically. The students of the vocational high school economics at the BK Hilden and the department of trade and marketing in Vic drew up a marketing concept based on the properties of the product. After completing the last work steps, a first transnational meeting should take place in Hilden at the end of March in order to present the project results and, building on the students' different levels of experience, to implement optimizations in international groups. However, this was omitted due to the shortened project work phase. Two transnational encounters were planned, as both greenhouses would have differences due to the different conditions in terms of temperature and humidity in Spain and Germany, so that a comparison of the working methods and the results would have been useful for understanding the influence of different climatic conditions. The resulting greenhouse could have been used sustainably in both schools, so this project should definitely be restarted in a new attempt. While the BK Hilden would like to use the greenhouse to cultivate plants that are used in the preparation of meals in the education program nutrition and housekeeping, the plant in Vic is to be used in the school's own cafeteria.