Nowadays, environmental issues represent a major global concern as they affect the quality of our lifestyle. Since most of the environmental challenges facing humanity are the consequences of human harmful activities, we, as educators, feel that it is our duty to educate students in this respect in order to become responsible adults. With the project “ Be-Friend with nature”, 5 schools in Bulgaria, Turkey, Poland, Greece and Italy aim to provide participants with a wide range of opportunities so as to enhance their awareness on environmental issues and enrich knowledge in the field thanks to innovative teaching and learning methods. Hence, they will do presentations, analysis, search activities in a collaborative and stimulating atmosphere that encourages communication with their peers. Project objectives can be summarized as follows: • to enhance participants’ knowledge and degree of awareness towards environmental global issues • to motivate students develop a proactive attitude and think globally • to foster the integration of innovative strategies such as flexible and personalized learning, digital story telling, gamification, video-based learning, project-based learning in the schools' curriculum • to raise students’ interest in learning foreign languages, especially English, and develop their English language communicative skills • to promote the use of CLIL in the Environmental Education subject • to improve key competences and skills in ICT and digital tools • to develop participants’ sense of tolerance, active citizenship and ability to overcome cultural and linguistic obstacles • to improve pedagogical expertise and experience • to provide a European dimension to the educational process in all partner schools Students aged ….. will represent the main target group and they will cooperate in transnational teams so as to exchange impressions, ideas, knowledge, cultural aspects of their home countries. We estimate that a total number of approximately 400 students will be indirect beneficiaries of the project at partnership level. Project products will consist of: -Official project website -E-twinning project space -E-booklet of Innovative Strategies with lesson plans and original examples from all five schools -Urban sprawl photo album -E-booklet of endangered species -Digital story book on deforestation and endangered species - Educational Video games database -E-booklet of the international and local NGOs/institutions working for environment Project partners have decided to share project responsibilities and each school will contribute to the project, follow the project calendar and deadlines established within the partnership. The project outcomes and outputs will generate an inspiring potential. All project products will be available for free use on project website, in the e-twinning platform. The planned LTTAs will be highlights in the project; an effective learning process environment based on participants’ experience and exchange employing various methods that focus mainly on practice. These will foster strengthened motivation, team spirit, increased self-confidence, creativity for constructive activities and further lifelong skills. Participants will benefit from the undeniable experience and expertise of professionals and the schools’ associated partners in this project. By applying a constructivist approach, adults will assist students to transfer the gained information and apply it to a modern and dynamic school environment that will lead to a higher rank quality of educational services across Europe
The activities were carried out according to the application form. In the initial meeting in Turkey, time and activities were established. In each meeting the program was fully respected and in every country a travel manual was prepared that was always respected. All children participated in the proposed clubs from a minimum of 20 to a maximum of 80. We are particularly keen to say that teachers have been the real 'ambassadors' of the project for their countries, primarily in teaching with children, but also with families and the territory. All the activities carried out had the aim of spreading a of love and respect for the environment through various languages: mathematical, linguistic, technological and scientific, but above all that of being able to bring everyone to the languages of the STEM in order to be more captivating. while the contents and messages can be pulled out objectively and usable by children. The activities carried out during the 2+1 years of the project: - Logo: the team designed and chose the logo to identify our project -Erasmus Corner: where we presented all the phases of the work- Display of banners and posters in each school. Preparing the social media pages and the project website project page: on the Facebook social network and web page E-Twinning page: the project is on E-twinning with video, photos and documents reports - report (video, photographic, paper) of each country visited on traditions, music, food, etc.: made with different graphic-pictorial techniques, to allow children to get to know our partner countries - Daily newspaper "Paper of clean world" -club lack of energy source and ricycle: in which we have activated theoretical and practical laboratories to discover some methods and best practices to save energy. Fashion parade with outfits made of recycled Materials. Recyling boxes made of recycled materials In this segment of the journey, each country has presented his work which was summarized and enclosed by Italy in a handbook -climate change club : Climate change presentations and infographics materials .Art works that reflect climate change, using different techniques. Art exhibition organized in schools, especially using materials of nature such as clay - Endangeret animals and deforestation club: in which theoretical and practical activities were presented from each country in order to learn about endangered animals and take action to save them, preserving their habitats, particularly forests, woods, but also marine flora. Bulgaria summarized and enclosed the activities of all countries in a multimedia presentation (e-booklet) that can be used by teachers and children - Language club: in which children have learned songs, rhymes, rhymes, rebus, crossword, dictionary and seen films in English on the subject dealt with. Digital storytelling: Each country has created a digital storytelling off teme environment -Pollution club: in which, thanks to the wise guidance of the Greek partners, we have organized days for the collection of plastic in cities and natural environments, we have activated or improved separate collection in all schools. Clean up campaign with placards and slogans about environmental pollution. Photo exhibition illustrating different kinds of pollution - Urban sprawl and overpopulation club : Photo sessions by students, teachers and families together to capture examples of local urban sprawl. Photo exhibition to illustrate aspects of urban sprawl. Mini kids forum to discuss the overpopulation issue. Simple smart cities model designs with web 2.0 tools explained in an exceptional way in Poland, thanks to the slowcity format - lesson plans: each nation has prepared 5 lesson plans, one for each topic covered. Our students have had the opportunity to be part of all these activities that we have integrated into school activities for children from 3 to 11 years old and also in extracurricular ones. It was very important to also involve families to enable them to bring a scientific mindset into all homes. All these activities helped our students to reflect on the research method, to be curious and to improve their problem solving skills. Since the activities were all carried out with a playful background, they also contributed to their self-esteem and confidence. Our students were involved in the project and became more interested in the English language than before.