Eco-Friendly Mapping is a Project aimed at 15-16 year old students focused on the environment, waste management and greenhouse gas emissions and carried out using the digital applications of a geolocation company (Here Maps) as a resource. The project will be carried out by an association of four educational centres in the Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Spain that share both the need for training in digital tools and in environmental awareness of their students. The centres in Italy, the Netherlands and Spain are Secondary Education Schools, while the Portuguese centre is a Vocational School, which will enrich the association by having different pedagogical points of view. The approximate number of participants will be about 60 students and 8 teachers per centre. Inter-centre communication will be carried out through the eTwinning platform. The observation of an important deficiency in ecological training in the students of these centres, since they were unaware of the importance of keeping the environment (next to first and most distant in general) clean, was the need that started this project. On the other hand, all the participating centres agreed on the need to establish a European conscience in our students and to promote the development of linguistic competences, so that proposing a transnational project was the best option to achieve our objectives. In this way, the main axes of this project are structured: environmental awareness, development of ICT skills, acquisition of a European awareness and improvement of language skills. These general objectives are define in the following specific objectives: - Becoming aware of the real situation of environmental problems and developing an environmental awareness. - Assuming we belong to the European Union and as members we are engaged to work for a common space. - Developing the digital competence with an external cartography Enterprise. - Improving the written and oral skills in English and mother tongue. - Establishing comparative surveys to adopt good practices. - Promoting healthy activities for leisure in their close environment as a way of social inclusion. To achieve these objectives, a series of activities are proposed, using a methodology based on analysis and comparison in order to draw some conclusions to modify our habits. Some of these activities are: - Analyze current news and reports about environmental problems surrounding us. - Studying the local waste management and the relationship between speed limits in different streets and greenhouse gas emissions (studying bio-indicators). - Suggesting and practising healthy and eco-friendly leisure routes. - Studying the situation of our rivers and their different species. - Making a glossary of project-related terms in English and mother tongue. The final results that are expected to be achieved will be tangible: elaboration of a set of rules of good practice that can be sustained over time (sustainability), a manifesto for the institutions, healthy leisure routes that will be implemented in the mobile geolocation application of the company HERE MAP, a blog with news related to the project, as well as the research work carried out, a glossary in English and in the mother tongues of the partner countries. Non-tangible results: improve language skills and digital competence and environmental awareness, increase motivation in both teachers and participating students exchanging good practices, internationalization (European awareness) of participating institutions. We foresee an impact of the project in different ways. Firstly, in the closer environment with the changing of personal habits and the implementation of some actions that enhance environmental care on the side of the participants in the project. Secondly, an impact in the environment of the cities object of this project as the results of our surveys will be conveyed to the local and regional institutions such as town halls, regional Government, European Union, etc. On the other hand, we would like to highlight the impact of this project on our schools and so, in our students and teachers from another point of view. We believe this project can be academically effective as we are going to work this topic interdisciplinary and this means the improvement in skills from quite varied subjects as well as a personal development.
Eco-Friendly Mapping was designed as a project aimed at 15-16 year old students focused on the environment, waste management and greenhouse gas emissions and carried out using the digital applications of a geolocation company (Here Maps) as a resource. All the participating Schools shared both the need for training in digital tools and the environmental awareness of their students as well as the need to promote a European awareness in them and the development of linguistic competences, so that proposing a transnational project was the best option to achieve our objectives. Due to several unexpected circumstances, the initial project had to be adapted and modified in what it was needed. Firstly, the project association consisted of four partners: The Netherlands, Italy, Portugal and Spain but the Portuguese School resigned from the project at the beginning. This meant a readaptation of both the activities and the mobilities that the rest of the association's participants agreed to assume in order to cope with the project. Secondly, the global health emergency prevented us from carrying out the mobilities in the order, dates and content as scheduled. The approximate number of participants was about 150 students, of whom 100 participated in the mobilities and 17 teachers, with the occasional collaboration of other members of the educational community of the Schools.The main means of communication among Schools was eTwinning Platform apart from email and Whatsapp. The axes of this project were structured as follows: Environmental awareness, development of ICT skills, acquisition of a European awareness and improvement of language skills. These general objectives were defined in the following specific objectives: Becoming aware of the real situation of environmental problems and developing an environmental awareness Assuming we belong to the European Union and as members we are engaged to work for a common space Developing the digital competence with an external cartography Enterprise Improving the written and oral skills in English and mother tongue Establishing comparative surveys to adopt good practices Promoting healthy activities for leisure in their close environment as a way of social inclusion To achieve these objectives, a series of activities were proposed, using a methodology based on analysis and comparison in order to draw some conclusions to modify our habits. All the activities carried out contributed to a high degree of achievement of them. Some of them were: Analysis of current news and reports about environmental problems surrounding us Study of the local waste management and the relationship between speed limits in different streets and greenhouse gas emissions (study of bio-indicators). Suggestion and practice of healthy and eco-friendly leisure routes Study of the situation of our rivers and tap water and air quality Elaboration of a glossary of project-related terms in English and the partners’ mother tongue In summary, we can express that the activities proposed were varied, practical, attractive and innovative to the students, a good means to convey the message and consequently, to get the targets. For all that, we can conclude that these activities can be used in the long run and also because we have checked their benefits and impact along the project. Although initially it was difficult for the students to work with the proposed methodology, we can affirm that there was a development throughout the project in such a way that it helped the students to analyze, become aware of the situation and consequently, modify their behaviour. The final products obtained were elaborated in a collaborative way among all the participants, from the observation, analysis and comparison as we had initially programmed. All tangible final results that were expected were achieved: elaboration of a decalogue of good practices that can be sustained over time (sustainability), a manifesto for the institutions, healthy leisure routes to be implemented in the mobile geolocation application of the company HERE MAP, a web with news related to the project, as well as the research work carried out, a glossary in English and in their mother tongues. In the same way, non-tangible results were achieved: the improvement of language skills, digital competence and environmental and European awareness and the increase in motivation in both teachers and participating students. The implementation of this project meant an impact in different ways. Firstly, in the closer environment with the changing of personal habits and the implementation of some actions that enhance environmental care on the side, as evidenced in the Decalogue. Secondly, an impact in the cities object of this project according to the results of our surveys conveyed to the local institutions such as Town Halls (Manifesto). Finally, the impact in our Schools, working interdisciplinary led to an improvement in competences in different subjects.