Based on the current debate on climate change as an existential crisis and the commitment of young people in the context of the Europe-wide Fridays for Future movement, the project "Mare Nostrum - the ecologically collapsing Baltic Sea as natural, economic and political sphere - issues and challenges" addresses the problem of the current ecological situation of this exemplary Baltic Sea region. The manifold influences on the ecosystem of the Baltic Sea are considered against the background of the principle of sustainability not only from an ecological and scientific, but also from a political and economic perspective. Thus, the project pursues not only a transnational, but also an interdisciplinary approach. With their different approaches, the departments of biology, geography, economics and politics contribute to the pupils' awareness of the current ecological situation of the Baltic Sea and develop visions for the future of the Baltic Sea as an ecological model region in the EU. Concrete measures to save the Baltic Sea, which every participant and school community can take, will also be developed. All participants are Baltic Sea bordering states. Pupils aged between 15 and 17 years and teachers will participate in the project activities. In order to enable as many pupils from the participating schools as possible to take part in a learning activity, 12 pupils from each of three project countries and two to three teachers will be involved in each mobility. A total of 96 pupils and 22 accompanying teachers will participate in mobilities. In the first year of the project, during the first project week in Finland in October 2020, Polish and German pupils together with Finnish pupils will create podcasts on current political measures and their implementation with regard to ecological problems of the Baltic Sea. In the second activity in spring 2021, German and Finnish pupils will visit Sweden to experience, analyse and film the ecological problems of the Baltic Sea from a biological and geographical point of view with the Swedish pupils. The hands-on project on the Swedish Baltic Sea coast focuses on the topic of plastic waste and its avoidance. In the second year of the project, in November 2021, the film material prepared in Sweden will be used with Germany as the host country to realise the stopmotion film project "Present and future of the Baltic Sea as a living and economic area" with Swedish, Polish and German pupils. In this project-week, the political, biological and geographical aspects developed in the first two learning activities will be brought together and different future scenarios will be modelled. In the final project-week in Poland in spring 2022, a Baltic Sea board game "The climate is tilting" will be conceived with the obtained results, in which the complex relationships in this ecosystem will be made visible and tangible. During the national periods of the project between the learning activities pupils will learn about the fundamental facts in their politics, biology and geography lessons at their national schools. The central aim of both the learning activity weeks and the lessons in the national phases of the project is to motivate the pupils - in addition to dealing with the Baltic Sea ecosystem from a biological, geographical and political point of view - to take responsibility in their everyday lives, to develop and implement ideas for reducing environmental pollution and to become involved as EU citizens in improving the ecological condition of the Baltic Sea. In addition to the theoretical and practical knowledge, the students will acquire methodological skills in handling a film camera, a camera, sound recording devices and the software for making stop-motion-films. They learn question techniques, how to create know-how posters and how to plan and carry out an exhibition. Last but not least, they acquire manual and conceptual skills in creating a board game. The described project results are to be used as learning materials in the subject lessons of biology, geography and politics of the respective countries and also for bilingual teaching. In addition, it is planned to publish the posters through exhibitions in and outside the schools and the film scenes and podcasts at school events in all participating schools and on the internet. Finally, the results of the project are to be further disseminated through the school homepage, the school newspaper, regional media and passed on to environmental associations or libraries.
Based on the current debate on climate change as an existential crisis and the commitment of young people in the context of the Europe-wide Fridays for Future movement, the project "Mare Nostrum - the ecologically collapsing Baltic Sea as natural, economic and political sphere - issues and challenges" addressed the problem of the current ecological situation of the Baltic Sea region as an example. The manifold influences on the ecosystem of the Baltic Sea were considered against the background of the principle of sustainability not only from an ecological and scientific, but also from a political and economic perspective. Thus, the project pursued not only a transnational, but also an interdisciplinary approach. With their different approaches, the departments of biology, geography and politics contributed to the students awareness of the current ecological situation of the Baltic Sea so that they could develop visions for the future of the Baltic Sea as an ecological model region in the EU. Concrete measures to save the Baltic Sea, which every participant and school community can take, were also developed. The mobility to Finland planned for the first year of the project had to be rescheduled into a three-day digital workshop due to the COVID pandemic. After the students from all countries had already got to know each other at a digital get-together in December, the participants, divided into groups, held video conferences on various topics such as pollution, invasive species, Northstream II, tourism, harmful substances in the Baltic sea and created podcasts in which they included digital expert interviews. Due to the COVID pandemic, the project was extended by one year and the remaining mobilities took place in the period from October 2022 to April 2023. In the first real mobility to Poland, the topic of the Baltic Sea ecosystem was developed in more depth with Swedish, Finnish, German and Polish students and posters and a card game were created. The second project week took place in Sweden with Polish, German and Swedish students, in which - as planned - in a practical hands-on project on the Swedish Baltic Sea coast the focus was on the topic of plastic waste and how to avoid it. The film recordings made on the coast also flowed into the last project week with Finnish, Polish, Swedish and German students in Germany, in which short films were produced in transnational groups on the topics of overfishing, biodiversity, plastic problem, eutrophication and water quality in the Baltic Sea. These were then presented to the school community of the Humboldt-Gymnasium in a final presentation together with the results from the other project weeks. Due to the current political situation in Ukraine, this topic was additionally taken up during the project week in Poland and discussed with the students from the perspective of the various participating countries. During the national periods of the project between the learning activities students learned about the fundamental facts in their politics, biology and geography lessons at their national schools. The aim of both the learning activity weeks and the learning periods in the national phases of the project was to motivate the pupils - in addition to dealing with the Baltic Sea ecosystem from a biological, geographical and political point of view - to take on responsibility in their everyday life and to develop and implement ideas for reducing environmental pollution. An example where this was successful is the start of the project "Nudges" at the Humboldt-Gymnasium to reduce waste pollution. In addition to the theoretical and practical knowledge, the students have acquired methodological skills in handling both film and photographic camera, sound recording devices and the software for producing films. They have learned question techniques for podcats interviews, how to create know-how posters and how to plan and carry out an exhibition and they have acquired conceptual skills in creating a card game. Moreover all participants obviously improved their English skills. The described project results will be used as learning materials in the biology, geography and politics classes of the respective countries and also for bilingual teaching. The project results were also disseminated through internal and extra-curricular presentations of the results of the project, for example at the final presentation at the end of the last project week or the Erasmuspresentation at the school festival of the Humboldt Gymnasium, through articles in the local newspapers, the Erasmus page on the school homepage and on the digital school notice board as well as through the release of the posters, podcasts, films and the card game.