Schools for the future: heritage and climatic emergency in classrooms

Project summary

“Schools for the future: heritage and climate emergency in classrooms” is an association of European schools designed to achieve various objectives. Firstly, to favour the development of innovative methodologies based on project learning and service school, which contribute to improving the quality of the educational process, the professional competence of teachers and the interest and motivation of our students. We will use attractive activities that make use of ICT as the main tool and therefore favouring the curiosity of our students, making them a leading actor who asks questions to be answered after a process of analysis and critical reflection of reality. We seek to facilitate the acquisition of key competences, as well as the development of democratic attitudes, values ​​and respect for difference and diversity. Ultimately, from our public schools, we aim to help train the European citizens of the future that will perpetuate the essential values ​​of the EU. Secondly, focusing on issues that call for urgent solutions. The protection and enhancement of heritage as one of the main evidences of diversity and cultural richness constitutes one of these issues. By proposing a comparative study of the heritage wealth of the surroundings of the three partner centres, we will deepen our knowledge of their characteristics and the challenges that this heritage faces. Because, as it is often repeated, only what is known is cared for. In relation to heritage, we will address our central problem as a species: the ecological crisis. Its evidences are innumerable and do not admit discussion, but we are still resilient to rethink our ways of life and consumption as the main cause of their existence. That is why it is crucial to approach future generations to a rigorous and critical analysis of the problem. And we will do it starting from the local, from the closest and daily environment for our students, reaching from there the international one. The conclusions will thus be revalue, and will allow our students to develop a collective conscience with adolescents from other countries. This internationalization will allow both students and teachers to improve the linguistic competence in other languages, which is key in a world in which the need for communication between countries is more and more important. This will also reinforce the development of attitudes of respect and appreciation of diversity. The deployment of this entire strategy will be based on a program of activities that will cover all areas of the curriculum, and that will require the collaboration not only of the teaching staff, but of the entire educational community, with families at the front. Collaboration with other non-educational organizations and institutions will also be sought, whenever possible, and direct communication and collaboration will be maintained with the competent educational administrations. This way, we will ensure that the circulation and impact of the project and the dissemination of the results reach a very wide scope, which will result in an improvement of its sustainability. Something in which the internationalization to which we will have access thanks to short and long-term mobility will have a lot to say. They will also offer real contexts and situations in which our students will be able to develop in a much more profound and effective way those democratic values ​​and respect for diversity that, if done on a theoretical level, would be much more difficult to achieve. To ensure the success of the project, we will implement monitoring, follow-up and evaluation tools not only so as not to lose the path that leads us to the initial objectives, but to be able to apply corrective measures for improvement when necessary. We are convinced that the public school is the only one capable of guaranteeing a quality education, offering equal opportunities and correcting any type of inequality. We will not forget the students who, for social and economic reasons, could not aim for an experience like the one our project offers. We will design strategies so that they can fully join the project, including mobility. In short, we propose a multidisciplinary and international project that tries to generate authentic learning contexts, which improves teaching competence and makes our students the protagonist, helping them to acquire key skills for their future, as well as to develop democratic attitudes and respect for diversity and human rights. They will also develop a critical capacity to analyze urgent problems to propose solutions. We will do this beyond the more formal educational environment and opening the teaching process to the entire educational community, to which each and every one of the results will return.