CONTEXT We are 5 European schools which want to join our efforts to increase the students’ knowledge and interest in subjects related to the cultural heritage of our countries – Geography, History. Moreover, in a world touched by globalisation in which individuals have a tendency to overlook their own national heritage, we need our students to go back to their own roots by knowing the customs and traditions which have been passed on from generation to generation. We are of the opinion that if you don’t know your roots, you don’t know your foundation and if you don’t know your foundation, you can never thrive. Therefore, we want to cultivate our students’ patriotic feelings, making them look back to their past and their origins, while at the same time opening their horizons to other cultures and their specificities. PARTICIPANTS Students – the target group is made up of approximately 1000 students aged 11-14, 100 of them having special education needs. 150-200 of them will be selected as members of the work group (minimum 30 / country, but the number may vary according to the size of the target group up to 40). They will be at the core of our project, will be involved in the activities of preparation before the exchanges, 100 of them will participate in the activities during exchanges, will disseminate the information to the other members of the target group after the exchanges. Accompanying teachers – 2 teachers/country/exchange. One of them will be the coordinator, while the other one will be a History/Geography/Literature/Arts/IT teacher OBJECTIVES The main purpose of the project is to increase the cultural and intercultural awareness of all the actors involved in its implementation. However, being specifically targeted to students, we have set the following objectives for them: OS1. To increase the cultural awareness of at least 80% of students, making them more knowledgeable about the history, geography, literature, customs, traditions, dances, music OS2. To increase intercultural awareness and competence of all the students, making them more knowledgeable about the other European countries, history, geography, literature, customs, traditions, dances, music. OS3 To improve students’ ICT skills by having them use mobile applications and online tools for presentations, activities, evaluation, creation of outputs OS4 To improve students’ transferrable skills – communication, research and analysis, team work, adaptability, organisation OS5 To improve students’ motivation for learning and self-confidence At the level of the institutions, our objectives are: 1. To improve the European dimension and international cooperation 2. To motivate teachers 3. To improve the communication and cooperation among all school actors MAIN ACTIVITIES We plan to organize 5 exchanges, each dedicated and hosted by each partner: 1. C1 - The Italian heritage – hosted by Italy in February 2020 2. C2 – The Lithuanian Heritage – hosted by LT in May 2020 3. C3 – The Romanian Heritage – October 2020 4. C4 – The Turkish Heritage – March 2021 5. C5 – The Polish Heritage – June 2021 RESULTS Tangible results include: presentations created by students (30), workshop materials, online brochures (5), the final output “The European heritage”, guest students’ travel journals (80), the eTwinning space, eTwinning forum, photo albums (5), Europass mobility documents (112), certificates of attendance (112) initial and final evaluation forms, mobility documents (agenda, methodology, questionnaires, evaluation forms) etc. IMPACT The institutions will benefit from the good practices acquired and transferred through the participation of students and teachers in the exchanges. They will promote intercultural learning and will open to new models that will benefit the students in the medium and long run, too. We will develop the European dimension of the school and will be better prepared to manage projects under Erasmus+, both the experienced schools and the less experienced ones. This project will lay the foundation for future cooperation among schools through eTwinning and Erasmus+
Our Project aimed to improve the European Commission's strategy for 2020 in terms of improving the basic skills of the new generations for a better future. through the development of the fundamental skills needed in social, entrepreneurship, participatory spirit, artistic, linguistic and digital skills. Five short-term student mobility activities were organized to meet our project goals. For the students the main objective of this project was to find new methods to increase environmental awareness the goal of their activity which I promote to find pan-European thinking. To improve the educational atmosphere, learning and teaching activities have been our main tools. We have tried to change the perception that students have by using the short-term mobility activity. In order to create a multidisciplinary and practical teaching approach, activities carried out by the educator alone and those practiced together with our students were selected. The main activities and exchanges were carried out in the following order C1 - The Italian heritage - Italy in February 2020 C5 - The Polish heritage - Poland October 2021 C2 - Lithuanian heritage - Lithuania December 2021 C4 - The Turkish heritage - Turkey March 2022 C3 - Romanian heritage - Romania end of May / beginning of June 2022 In this way we carried out 5 learning / teaching / training meetings during the three years of implementation of the project. The project started with a mobility meeting of pupils and teacher training in Italy. The exchange of pupils was accompanied by teacher training. It was a strategic decision of the Italian partner. In fact, the right coordinator has been created and an advertising atmosphere has also been created for our educational program. The visits had all different sub-topics as we want to dare a complete overview of what the artistic and cultural heritage looks like in the region of each participant. An analysis was then made on the role of the territory in the cultural and socio-economic background in a given area (agriculture, industry, energy sources, traffic, folk art, history and literature ). During the various exchanges the students also took part in activities in which they studied the role of Heritage in the local economy (eg tourism). Students developed greater communication skills: team spirit, working together for a common goal, and the contribution of personal ideas. Students presented PPS, videos, documents on cities and countries, even literature sub-topics, two for each meeting. The activities with the sub-topics were different for each partner because the presentations of the structures and methodologies of the country, the cultural activities in the school, the visits to the institutions of the teachers and guests were very useful for all. The teachers involved the students in participating in all kinds of activities. This atmosphere created a positive synergy in the school environment and impressed every member of the school very positively. Before the exchange meetings, there were preparation activities in the school, in the classrooms and after the observation of the project team, those who were able deserved to participate in the exchange activities in the partner countries. We had 5 student meetings (L / T / T / A) in the project. Each sub-topic was applied in each school before the exchange, during the exchange and after the exchange, according to the feedback, and the good practices were incorporated into the school curriculum. The final meeting was organized to observe and evaluate the results and create the final report. The objectives and priorities of the project have been on the same groups with success: cultural awareness has increased making them more informed other European countries, history, geography, literature, customs, traditions, communication, research and analysis, work of, adaptability, organization; the cause of students for learning and self-confidence This project is innovative because it is linked to several key areas of education: social environment, natural environment, science, economics, technology, history, art etc. All these areas are interconnected and to be analyzed in an interdisciplinary perspective. Working in an international team and traveling abroad provided those students with greater benefits than expected. Only programs like Erasmus + offer them opportunities to “make a change”.