In the last years antidemocratic and anti-European sentiment has increased in different countries all over Europe. The number of eurosceptic and right-wing populist members of parliament have increased among others e.g. in Germany, Greece, Estonia, Turkey and Italy, as well as the European Parliament itself, being elected by European citizens, who question the very existence of the European Union. Furthermore there has been an intensive debate in recent years about challenges like migration, digitalization and economic difficulties and how to tackle these problems. This project aims at overcoming anti-European tendencies and promoting pro-European sentiment in the near future by educating students as citizens of Europe about the importance of a unified Europe, especially in terms of peace, economy and freedom. Vocational and secondary schools from Turkey, Greece, Germany, Italy and Estland are participating in this project and are contributing to its quality by bringing in different European perspectives. Project work is overall exploring the past, present and future of the European Union, represented by the different countries. Students are first investigating the historical background that led to the formation of the European Union. The next step is to examine present-day benefits of the European Union for the students themselves, for their region and their country, as well as, current challenges, like migration, economic difficulties and the consequences of anti-European movements that led e.g. to Brexit. As a last step the students are considering future developments and possible solutions for present-day challenges, like digitalization and possible future members of the EU. The different subtopics are dealt with during short-term students exchanges in order to enable students to vividly explore the different European perspectives. Furthermore, an e-Twinning with the same topic is implemented to increase the number of participants in the project at every school, as well as, emphasizing Europe as a topic in everyday lessons, like Political Education, Ethics, History, Business economics, etc.. During project work students are being encouraged to preferable create digital products like explanatory videos, online quizzes/games, audio files/podcasts, e-books, comics and cartoons, with the help of IT tools. The project is expected to raise all participants' appreciation of the achievements and benefits of a unified Europe over the past and the present, as well as, enhancing awareness of Europe's power and the need of joined European forces to tackle present-day challenges all over Europe to enable a better future of all Europeans. As a long term-benefit this project overall aims at supporting the original European idea and to strengthens Europe itself as a political institution within Europe and in a globalized world and to enable to adapt to the changing world of work in terms of digitalization.
The aims of the project were: - to improve the knowledge of all participants about the historical background of the EU, its ideals and achievements - to get an awareness of the general benefit of the EU and the personal benefit of the individual in the EU - the elevation of each EU citizen as well as the appreciation of the EU as a community - to raise awareness that the EU is something special, something unique in the world. - to make the participants feel that they are citizens of the European community and can be proud of it - Enable participants to actively represent the European idea and democracy against nationalistic and populist ideas. - encourage participants to become politically involved in European affairs and discussions - to strengthen the participants to get involved in problems of other EU countries - to make the participants understand the different points of view of the EU partner countries regarding migration and refugee policy with regard to the economy involved. - in the long term, to improve their knowledge as a means of communication as well as to integrate the use of digital tools for joint cooperation in the project. These objectives are related to the priorities "Shared values, civic engagement and participation, EU awareness, EU - citizenship and democracy". In this context, the topic of "digitization" is of particular importance, as the eTwinning application enabled exchanges among the participants, especially in the first few months. Furthermore, the focus was on video conferencing to enable participation in activities against the backdrop of the pandemic, especially since the German group was prohibited from attending the face-to-face event in Italy. Another focus was the use of digital tools to prepare and work on topics and to save results.