In times of worldwide protests against the inactivity of governments to actively counter climate change and take concrete steps to protect the climate, a youth movement has formed in recent years, which under the name "Fridays for future" is actively protecting the climate involved. Against this background, the project aims to sensitize students, teachers and also parents to this problem, since we consider climate protection to be a key issue for future generations. In this project, concrete measures are also being worked out so that everyone involved can participate even better in the future and -with more background knowledge- in protecting the climate. In order to make it clear to the students that climate change is a global problem, but it has different effects in particular, we brought 4 partner schools from different regions of Europe on board. In a first step, the participating teachers are trained on this topic. With the mobilities on site, special regional topics on climate change are taken up and worked on by the students during a "project week". The result will be a guideline for action on "regional" climate protection, which will be included in the school's mission statement in order to achieve a sustainable impact of the project. The students should recognize that, despite the different effects of climate change and the small steps that each individual can take to protect the problem, the problem can only be solved together. All schools will create a Ecological Calendar with the dates of activities like : March 12 - Day of planting flowers March 21 - World forest day April 1 - International day of birds April 15 - Day of ecological knowledge April 29 - Day of planting trees May 15 - International day of climate protection June 5 - Ecologist's day August 29 - International day against nuclear tests September - 24- Clean up the World, September 16 - International day for the preservation of the ozone layer 04.10 The day of St. Francis of Assisi Patron Saint of Ecologists- October 4 - World animal protection day November 15 - Day of recycling December 11 - International Mountain day
Summary of Project: The project was launched in 2020 against the backdrop of the "Friday for Future" movement. The goal was to provide our students with a concrete action guide for environmental and climate protection and to raise awareness for the problems of climate change. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the project could not be carried out as originally planned, as physical mobilities were largely impossible in 2020/2021 and 2022. During this time, small contributions to the project were organized at the respective schools, which were presented to the other partners in online meetings and on social media. These presentations were also published on the e-twinning platform. However, this data was lost when the platform was redesigned. Also during this time, climate data boxes were installed at each partner school to allow students to share climate data online. This idea was introduced to the teachers during a workshop on climate change at the University of Augsburg during the Kick Off event in September 2021. The responsible teachers of the Parkschule Stadtbergen also developed the idea of procuring a "Talking Tree" to bring our students closer to the tree as a living being. This idea also originated from the workshop at the University of Augsburg. The creation of a flowering meadow on a fallow area of the school as a contribution to the protection of species and the installation of a climate educational trail in the town of Stadtbergen also originated in the time when physical mobilities were not possible. With the beginning of the school year 2022/23 and the end of the pandemic, mobilities could finally take place again. The visits to the respective partner schools each had an environmental or climate protection theme that was appropriate to the region in which the mobility took place. At the final project meeting in May 2023 in Stadtbergen, the jointly developed results were presented to a broad public in the context of a school festival. At this school festival, activities of the respective mobilities were presented in the form of presentations and exhibitions, a play on climate change rehearsed by the students was performed, and the flowering meadow, the climate educational trail and, above all, the "Talking Tree" were officially put into operation. In conclusion, it remains to be said: We are very pleased that we have succeeded in achieving the goals we set at the start of the project and have far exceeded them. With the project, we have created the opportunity for concrete further work on environmental and climate protection topics with our students. Most of all, however, we are pleased that the project has succeeded in strengthening the European idea among the students on the one hand and in arousing their curiosity for "new things" and getting involved in environmental and climate topics on the other.