PROJECT BACKGROUNG Our starting point being the idea that the links between Humans and living species are diminishing even though our village is located in a rural area favorable to the attendance of natural areas and is part of the Natural Regional Park of the Provençales Baronnies, we have chosen to develop a project with a environnemental paradigm, the etwinning topic of the year 2020. Our society as a whole and we who live in rural areas are becoming more and more aware that the link between humans and living species are deteriorating. Since our village is located in the Natural Regional Park of the Baronnies Provençales, we have chosen to develop a project with a focus on the burning issue of the environment, the etwinning topic of the year 2020. PROJECT OBJECTIVES This is the reason why the founding idea of this project is to reconnect the links between Humans and living species through two issues we have thought to be relevant : the appropriate protection of the environment and the species, in this case the wolf facing the occupation and exploitation of this environment by Humans and the effects of over tourism on the fauna and flora. Our goals will therefore be to give meaning to the EMILE/CLIL program in order to communicate and act together, to engage pupils in an environmental issue through a project-based learning and to arouse or reinforce the idea of a European citizenship for young students. The cornerstone of this project is to reconnect humans and living species through two axes we thought were relevant: first, how to protect the environment and animals, with a focus on the situation of wolves who have to adapt to the human occupation and exploitation of their environment, and secondly the analysis of the development of intensive tourism and its effects on the fauna and flora. The goal of the EMIL/CLIL program would therefore aim to raise awareness of the importance of protecting our common natural heritage among young Europeans citizens by engaging them in projects and by communicating and acting together. NUMBER AND PROFILE OF THE PARTICIPANTS We shall be four partners from the South of Europe : Portugal, Italy, Greece and France. The Portuguese school is located in Braga, north of Porto, not far from the only national park of this country, Peneda-Gerês National Park ; the Italian school is in a village in the Alps ; the Cretan school is on the coast at Rethymnon. Mollans sur Ouvèze is a little village in the South-East of Drôme in a remote rural area. Each partner has to face the stated issues and will focus on observing how the other groups react, adjust, look for and find solutions. ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION Throughout this project, after laying out what is at stake to the pupils, we are going to meet different interlocutors who will give them a global picture of the issue, so that the students hear similar, complementary points of view. To that effect, we’ll meet breeders, farmers, wildlife protection organisms, guides from regional and national parks, representatives of the political world… Pupils will discover where people live and work, hike on the wolf’s territory. Later they will write a tale, prepare an exhibition using digital supports, write and perform a play about the situation. In order to do so, they will have to ask questions, write or record the answers, read articles… in English. This will imply a rigorous upstream preparation on our part so that pupils, when meeting each other and all the partners, can benefit from the project. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE RESULTS AND EXPECTED IMPACTS Achieving the final tasks will be a good way to measure the project completion along with the interest shown by the pupils throughout their activities. We hope this project will have a significant impact on the pupils. It should enable them to communicate in another language, teach them how to participate in a debate and form their own judgement and above all, simply raise their awareness on environmental issues. Ultimately, they will be also learn to focus on how to find solutions. We also think it will have an impact on the adults : teachers will have been working together for more than two years and in so doing, will have acquired or reinforced professional skills related to the implementation of a project. They will have engaged in real teamwork and will have created links with different countries and gained knowledge of different educational systems. Parents together with their children will have established different relationships with the teachers ; all our outside partners will have contributed and reinforced the idea of belonging to a territory. LONG TERM POTENTIAL BENEFITS We hope to raise interest in our project on the preservation of the link between Human and Living species that takes everybody’s opinion into account, as well as contribute to the growing awareness of the future citizenens’ sense of belonging to a shared land
This project occurred during the Covid pandemic. The pandemic had major consequences on the chronology of our travels, but not on our implementation. When we realized that we were not going to be able to do the mobilities in two years, as was planned, we mutually agreed, to create social links between the different partners by setting up virtual meetings between the teachers and the pupils over the first year and to postpone the mobilities until the second year. The objective of this project was to reconnect the Humans and the living through two environmental themes, the way farmers deal with the presence of wolves and the over abundance of tourists. The virtual exchanges made it possible, after the usual presentations, to start thinking about the issues of these problems. English was used as the common langage to reinforce and give meaning to the work completed inside the classroom. The geographic diversity of the four partners strengthened this collaboration. The partners are as follows : an Italian school, Sampeyre in the Alps, a little French school (four classes) Mollans sur Ouvèze not far from the Mount Ventoux, a bigger school in Braga Portugal in an urban area but not far from the National Park of Geres and finally a coastal and touristic city, Rethymnon in Crete. Activities were carried out in order to allow pupils to assimilate the whys and whereabouts of this project. Year 1 : creation of a logo common to the four partners, meetings with breeders, naturalistic guides, field trips, virtual exchanges, talk show. Year 2 : four mobilities in Italy, France, Portugal and Crete took place in order to strengthen the work previously done, meeting with breeders, guides, members of associations protecting the nature, mayors, storytellers… while on field trips or in museums ; discovery of the culture of the hosts (dances, songs, games, cooking…) The implementation of this project in its entirety, in spite of the sanitary constraints not expected at the time of its development, has enabled the objectives to be achieved. The pupils were given multiple opportunities to reconnect to the living, to comprehend fully the complexity of the themes. They improved their linguistic skills using English as a language of communication, but also discovered with pleasure some elements of the langage spoken by the other partners. They developed social skills because it was important for them to create links with the adults and pupils involved in the project. The implementation of the final tasks materialized and highlighted the project. The tasks were as follows : creation of a book in English (common to the four schools), talk-show in English (bringing out the work done over these two years), creation of a tale on the best way to live together. The benefits and impacts, both in short and long term, are the feeling of belonging to the European community, the awareness of the need to protect the environment, the importance of getting to know each other or living well together, and the desire to learn foreign languages to interact with each other.