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Europe is what it eats

2020-1-AT01-KA229-0779492020School Exchange PartnershipsfinalizedGood practice
Countries: AT|IT|DE|CZ|HR · Grant: €163,560
ICT - new technologies - digital competencesRural development and urbanisationAgriculture, forestry and fisheries

Project summary

The Erasmus+-School Partnership Project "Europe is what it eats" deals with the production, processing and marketing of regional specialities and their importance for rural regions in the partner countries. All participating schools have an agricultural focus and their common interest is, on the one hand, to jointly experience the importance of agricultural production for the rural regions in the countries Austria, Czech Republic, Italy (South Tyrol), Croatia (Istria) and Germany (East Frisia) and, on the other hand, to learn to appreciate the value of food and raw materials. We want to learn from each other from our different teaching-concepts and means of best-practice examples from agriculture: Getting to know agriculture in the countries participating in the project is an important aspect of the project. Concrete examples will be used to show the young people that it is possible to secure their own existence in rural areas through innovative ideas and agricultural products, to preserve valuable rural areas and to be proud to be a farmer. The different framework conditions for agriculture (natural and climatic conditions and EU Compensation payments) will be discussed. The project participants will become aware of the important role they will play for food security in their country/region in the future and how important it is to be open to new ideas and different cultures. The impact of EU funding programmes in the visited rural regions of Europe will be illustrated for project participants by means of concrete examples in the countries. The actual project results consist of (apart from the public project documentation in the form of a homepage) a "Virtual speciality basket of Europe" as well as a comparison of the effectiveness of the EU funding programmes in the regions visited. Five cross-border training, teaching and learning mobilities will be implemented within the framework of the project. Each of them will involve 50 students between 16 and 20 years of age and 10 supervising teachers. One of the partner countries will act as host country and be responsible for the development of the programme which is basically subject to the same framework conditions in all countries: - The project participants will get to know the partner educational institutions and the agricultural education options in the partner country --> school attendance; participation in lessons; meetings with pupils and teachers. - Pupils and teachers will become familiar with regional agricultural products, their production and marketing conditions and explore their importance for the rural area by visiting innovative and traditional farms and by participating in the production process of regional specialities. - The project participants will discover the variety of flavours of regional specialities in the visited regions of the partner countries together. They will explore the contribution of regional products to food sovereignty, dood culture and eating habits (historical, geographical and cultural background) in the regions of Europe. At the same time, openness towards other cultures and habits will thus be promoted. - The host educational institution will ensure that all activities are documented in digital form on the project homepage and that the regional specialities of the host country are collected in the "virtual speciality basket of Europe". The findings about the regional significance of the EU-Programmes will be collected in order to be compared at the end of the project and prepared for further use in class. - The contents will be taught bilingually. The activities have been designed in such a way that numerous European Youth Goals can be achieved during the implementation. They cover the following European Youth Goals: No 1: Connecting EU with Youth, No 3: Inclusive Societies, No 4: Information & Constructive Dialogue, No 5: Mental Health & Wellbeing, No 6: Moving Rural Youth Forward, No 7: Quality Employment for All, No 8: Quality Learning, No 10: Sustainable Green Europe and No 11: Youth Organisations & European Programmes. An evaluation of the programme will be carried out at the end of each mobility. The results of the evaluation will then be incorporated into the following programme designs. The homepage, which will be created within the framework of the project "Europe is what it eats", will serve as a continuous public project documentation. It will be online for at least another three years after the end of the project and will be available for use in the classroom as well as for interested parties. Public relations work will be carried out for the project in the regions visited (regional newspapers, homepages of the schools, TV, radio, etc.), therefore even those not involved in the project can find out about it and how they can obtain information about its contents and results.

Final report summary

The Erasmus+-School Partnership Project "Europe is what it eats" dealt with the production, processing and marketing of regional specialities and their importance for rural regions in the partner countries. All participating schools have an agricultural focus and their common interest was to jointly experience the importance of agricultural production for the rural regions in the countries Austria, Czech Republic, Italy (South Tyrol), Croatia (Istria) and Germany (East Frisia) and to learn to appreciate the value of food and raw materials. We wanted to learn from each other from our different teaching-concepts and means of best-practice examples from agriculture: Getting to know agriculture in the countries participating in the project was an important aspect of the project. Concrete examples were used to show the young people that it is possible to secure their own existence in rural areas through innovative ideas and agricultural products, to preserve valuable rural areas and to be proud to be a farmer. The different framework conditions for agriculture (natural and climatic conditions and EU Compensation payments) were discussed. The project participants became aware of the important role they will play for food security in their country/region in the future and how important it is to be open-minded to new ideas and different cultures. The impact of EU funding programmes in the visited rural regions of Europe was illustrated for the project participants by means of concrete examples in the countries. The actual project results consist of (apart from the public project documentation in the form of a homepage) a "Virtual speciality basket of Europe" as well as written findings on the impact of EU funding programs and the effects of climate change on agriculture. Five cross-border training, teaching and learning mobilities were implemented within the framework of the project. In each of them were minimum 50 students between 16 and 19 years of age and minimum 10 supervising teachers involved. One of the partner countries acted as host country and was responsible for the development of the programme which followed basically the same concept in all countries: - The project participants got to know the partner educational institutions and the agricultural education options in the partner country --> school attendance, participation in lessons, meetings with pupils and teachers took place - Pupils and teachers became familiar with regional agricultural products, their production and marketing conditions and explored their importance for the rural area by visiting innovative and traditional farms and by participating in the production process of regional specialities. - The project participants discovered the variety of flavours of regional specialities in the visited regions of the partner countries together. They explored the contribution of regional products to food sovereignty and eating habits in the regions of Europe. At the same time, openness towards other cultures and habits was promoted. - The host partner ensured that all activities were documented in digital form on the project homepage (https://deliciouseu.com) and that the regional specialities of the host country were collected in the "virtual speciality basket of Europe". The findings about the regional significance of the EU-programmes was collected was collected and recorded in written form on the project homepage, it was prepared for further use in class. - The contents were taught bilingually. The activities have been designed in such a way that numerous European Youth Goals could be achieved during the implementation. They covered the following European Youth Goals: No 1: Connecting EU with Youth, No 3: Inclusive Societies, No 4: Information & Constructive Dialogue, No 5: Mental Health & Wellbeing, No 6: Moving Rural Youth Forward, No 7: Quality Employment for All, No 8: Quality Learning, No 10: Sustainable Green Europe and No 11: Youth Organisations & European Programmes. An evaluation of the programme was carried out at the end of each mobility. The results of the evaluation were incorporated into the following programme designs. The homepage, which was created within the framework of the project "Europe is what it eats", served as a continuous public project documentation. It will be online for at least another three years after the end of the project and will be available for use in the classroom as well as for interested parties. Public relations work was carried out for the project in the regions visited (regional newspapers, homepages of the schools, TV, radio, etc.), therefore even those not involved in the project could find out about it and how they can obtain information about its contents and results.

Project partners (5)