"Save Water, Save Life" The basis of this project is the great program for the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - of the "2030" Agenda, with particular reference to the SDGs 14_ "Conserving and using the oceans in a lasting way , seas and marine resources for sustainable development ". Moreover the United Nations, with Water action decade 2018-2028 has committed to focus on water for a decade. The choice of water as an Erasmus topic comes from the European and global urge on the impact that pollutants, such as plastics, are having on the environment and, through the food chain , on human health. The topic objective, which comes from the creation of an E-twinning project as a first step of sharing needs and problems and designing ways to face them, is to prepare and empower all the people involved, especially the new generations, for the active creation of a fair and sustainable environment, taking into account the global aspects, the basic principles of democracy and cultural diversity and promoting actions to raise awareness of exploitation and the urgent conservation of water resources. The general objectives of our project are inscribed in the priorities of the Erasmus + program: -the development of exchanges and cooperation between different educational institutions to encourage the personal development of students and their skills; -the integration of the notions of European citizenship and multiculturalism, also using CLIL methodologies and ICT; -the use English to acquire a specific technical language related to the themes developed in the project; -Sharing with local water offices and institutions dealing with environmental education and sustainable tourism and search for possible solutions -cooperation between educational institutions and local firms/local and regional governments in order to find sustainable and innovative solutions to the water pollution issue -inclusion The project includes large groups of students aged 13-18 from Greece, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, the teachers who will take part in the implementation activities of the entire project and the school staff, according to their competences. Parents are also involved: they are supposed to actively participate in the educational work for a lasting effect. We have planned 5 mobilities of students: among all the students working on the project, 5 students per mobility per country will be selected + 2 accompanying teachers for a total amount of 100 students and 40 teachers. Groups will be also formed by pupils with fewer opportunities. In the meetings students will be working in international groups; they will introduce their school and environment and work on the assigned topics. The variety of activities aim to give value to each territory from the educational, environmental and economic point of view and promote actions in order to foster their consciousness of the urgent preservation of our environment. Field activities will involve sampling of waters and analysis of physical-chemical-biological parameters in the school labs. Thanks to the contribution of competent educational staff (laboratory technicians, ICT experts), and external experts (university professors, environmentalists, local companies), students will be led to reflect on and rework the data collected, and make a synthesis through the production of graphics, posters, PPT, videoclips and a short film In the students' exchanges, they will present their work, make comparisons to highlight common situations and different problems and find possible solutions( local production of bioplastic; an app to monitor the state of beaches in every country). A map/scale model, regularly updated, will be created to show the different water environmental characteristics of the partner countries and report the results of the field activities. The reports of the meetings will be published on the project website, on the Etwinning platform as well as on the Erasmus+ Project Results Platform. The impact will be on different levels: -To create a conscious, responsible, unprejudiced European citizen who becomes a model for other students and therefore will be a model for other schools -acquire knowledge of different cultural models -exchange good practices -multidisciplinary and transnational approach to environmental issues in full -sensitization at a local level of political, social, economic institutions and their involvement in the search for possible solutions -every citizen becomes a "sentinel" of their sea/ocean, lake, river territory (by means of the app) -urge national policies to protect the environment with particular attention to the problem related to the release of pollutants and microplastics. The results will inspire other teachers to participate in similar projects and will be used to create awareness in the local communities about the topics of the project, the European dimension, cultures and languages.
Save water, save life" The basis of this project was the program for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - of the "2030" agenda, with particular reference to SDG 14_ "Conserve and use the oceans in a sustainable way, seas and related resources for the Sustainable Development ". In addition, the United Nations has pledged to focus on water for the decade 2018-2028 The choice of water as an Erasmus topic derives from the European and global impetus on the impact that pollutants, such as plastics, are having on the environment and, through the food chain, on human health. The project included large groups of students aged 13-18 from Greece, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Spain, the teachers who took part in the implementation activities of the whole project and the school staff, according to the their skills. Parents were also involved and, at the level of dissemination, associations external to the educational institution (environmental associations, municipalities, coast guard) with the common goal of actively participating in educational work for a lasting effect. In the beginning we had planned 5 mobilities of students: among all the students working on the project, 5 students per mobility per country were selected + 2 accompanying teachers for a total amount of 100 students and 40 teachers. Groups were also formed by pupils with fewer opportunities. Unfortunately, due to the pandemics, not all countries were allowed to travel for the students' exchange and the schedule of exchanges had to be reworked according to the changing situation (Iceland expressed his intention to drop the project after the first year and only attended the mobility in Spain) In the meetings the students worked in international groups, introducing their school and environment and working on the assigned topics. The variety of activities had as its purpose the enhancement of each individual territory from an educational, environmental and economic point of view and the promotion of actions to promote awareness of the urgent conservation of our environment. Field activities concerned water sampling and the analysis of physical-chemical-biological parameters in school laboratories. Thanks to the contribution of competent educational staff (laboratory technicians, ICT experts) and external experts (university professors, environmentalists, local companies), the students were led to reflect and rework the data collected, and make a synthesis through the production of graphics , posters, PPT, and videoclips During the exchanges, students presented their work, highlighted and compared common situations and different problems to find possible solutions (debate on the possibility of using bioplastics as a solution to the problem of microplastic pollution). Unfortunately, due to the pandemic that forced students to take long periods of distance learning, a couple of the planned objectives were not achieved (ref. point 5 project description) The outputs and outcomes of the meetings have been published on the project website, on the Etwinning platform and on the Erasmus + project results platform. Overall, the impact of the project on the various communities was of a high level: -Creation of a conscious and responsible European citizen who becomes a model for other students and therefore for other schools - acquisition of knowledge of different cultural models - exchanges of good practices - multidisciplinary and transnational approach to environmental issues as a whole - raising awareness at the local level of political, social and economic institutions and their involvement in the search for possible solutions -awareness of citizens through international posters -possibility to intervene and collaborate with local associations for the protection of the environment, with particular attention to the problem relating to the release of pollutants and microplastics. The results have inspired other teachers to plan and participate in similar projects (a permanent marine biology laboratory has been set up in some schools) and will be used to create awareness in local communities on project topics, the European dimension, cultures and languages .