Climate change will have major impacts on the society and will generate significant changes in the way we will live in 20 or 30 years from now. The pupils currently trained in the 6 agrotechnical schools of the partnership will directly experience these changes during their lives and professional career. In addition to preparing them to today’s reality of the job-market, the schools thus have a societal responsibility to prepare their pupils to these forthcoming evolutions. This project will involve about 15-16 years old pupils following a general, technical or vocational training in one of the partner schools. The pupils will identify the environmental challenges that the society needs to tackle and will have to imagine the consequences it will have on their life and Professional activity in the future. The pupils will work together around the following question: what will be the skills and jobs required in 20 years? At the occasion of visits in the different partner schools, the pupils will collectively discover several transversal topics (such as natural biotopes and ecosystems, water resources and flood management, evolution of food production…) and work together on the implementation of concrete actions to answer to the climate change challenge in or near each school. In between the school visits, pupils will work together on “Sneaky Card” challenges using eTwinning to share the results of the challenge completion in their school. The Sneaky Cards will be produced by the pupils during each visit, based on what they have learnt all together. After the visit, each school will play one card and pass it on to another school, who will then complete the challenge and pass it on to another school etc. At the end of the project, schools will have produced together a fill Sneaky Cards game with 36 cards on 6 different topics, which will be shared with other schools in Europe and will continued to be played by other pupils after the end of the project. Based on the work of the pupils, this project will lead to a more general cogitation of the school communities about the future of agrotechnical schools in connection with the climate change societal challenge: what is the added value of agrotechnical schools for the society? How can they adapt the trainings and education they provide to anticipate the evolution of the jobs in the next 20 or 30 years? The schools’ teachers and management teams will exchange experiences on innovative solutions they are testing to provide trainings able to answer these challenges (permaculture, aquaponics, urban farming, adaptation of crops…). It is expected to lead to the sustainable implementation of innovative solutions in each of the partner schools, with direct benefits for the entire school community and the future professional capacity of their pupils. The exchange between pupils and teachers will drive the values of European citizenship within the school communities, enabling the participants to get a better acknowledgement of the cross-border dimension of their region and of the action of the European Union with regards to climate change. It will also contribute to promote a responsible citizenship, through the understanding of the role that each of them can play to contribute to a better world, in connection with the values of solidarity and cooperation between people. The project will also benefit to the cultural openness of the pupils and to the improvement of their language skills, both in English (working language of the project) and in the languages of the border region (French & Dutch). This project involves 6 agrotechnical schools all located in the same cross-border region between France and Belgium (Flanders). Through this project, the schools want to develop a new dynamic for cross-border cooperation that will lead to a sustainable partnership. It is expected that the project will enable the schools to get to know each other and to find a common understanding for the development of other projects in the future, especially long-term mobility of their pupils to follow studies or an internship in another school of this partnership. In the longer term, this school exchange project will thus contribute to the development of cross-border training between French and Belgian secondary agrotechnical vocational schools. This will have a direct impact on the cross-border job market, in a region that is today facing strong disparities of unemployment level on each side of the border.
This project involved 6 agrotechnical schools all located in the same cross-border region between France and Belgium (Flanders). 4 Belgian schools and 2 French schools all aiming to develop partnerships and work on issues of managing climate change and the impacts of man on nature. Each establishment selected 8 to 12 students aged 16 to 18 following general, technical or vocational training, depending on their motivation for the project. Selected participants were asked to identify current environmental challenges and climate change management issues and to work on this theme. The health context of the year 2020, linked to the COVID 19 pandemic, impacted the premises of the project because no physical mobility was possible. The representatives of each partner school therefore met regularly by video conference in order to find solutions to start the project while taking into account the constraints of the situation. The students having been selected in advance by the schools, it was decided to carry out a first virtual activity presenting the partner establishments, an activity which was then shared on Etwinnings so that the participants could discuss their achievements. Then a second logo creation activity for the project was organized, also on Etwinning. Given the duration of the pandemic and the uncertainty of being able to carry out the activities according to the established program, it was decided to ask to extend the project by one year. This was done and thus allowed the exchanges to take place in the second year, according to the initial N+1 plan. The action was divided into 6 student mobilities, 1 in each partner school, according to a predefined program linked to the theme. Each school has hosted at least once. The common thread of these mobilities was the creation of a game of challenge cards which will then be possible to share with other schools on the platforms. This card game aims to raise awareness that concrete and fun actions can be carried out for the preservation of nature in and outside schools. Another objective was to allow pupils, apprentices and students to discuss their different practices, whether professional or not, as well as to share their culture. The implementation was organized as follows: After each visit, a challenge on the theme of the visit was given by the host establishment at the end of the meeting. At the next meeting, each school presented their thoughts on the subject and the result of their work in the form of a slideshow. At the end of the action, during the final event, the participants gathered in mixed groups and worked on the creation of "Sneaky Cards". 6 groups then created 6 “challenge” cards on the 6 themes of the project. As a result, a game of 36 “challenge” cards was created based on what they learned together throughout the action. The game was initially supposed to be broadcast on the ETwinning platform, but the transfer of the platform to the European School Education Platform did not allow us to do it as we wanted. Beyond the creation of this card game, this action also and above all, allowed the participants to first discover the environments of the different schools thanks to cultural and educational visits linked to the theme (visit to museums, hikes, visits to companies...). Then it also allowed them to create links thanks to the concrete workshops set up (making insect hotels, creating a sensitive map, market gardening, aquaponics, etc.) but also to share their experiences and practice a foreign language. Indeed, each school, before receiving, scheduled the visit so that the learners could both work together on practical workshops but also so that they could develop their openness to other cultures, histories, etc. The students worked during the workshops, at the end of the project, on a Quiz (Kahoot) to discuss their experiences and the innovative solutions they tested (permaculture, aquaponics, urban agriculture, crop adaptation, short circuit and circular economy, etc.. ). In addition, the exchange between students and teachers promoted the values of European citizenship within school communities, allowing participants to obtain better consideration of the cross-border dimension of their territory and the action of the European Union in the face of climate change. It has also contributed to promoting responsible citizenship, through understanding the role that each of them can play in contributing to a better world, in line with the values of solidarity and cooperation. Finally, this project allowed partner schools to strengthen their links and also permitted other exchanges through mobilities of staff and learners.