Smartecology was born in October 2019 during a meeting between representatives from different schools in five countries with very different profiles: Iceland, Spain, Croatia, Germany and France. Despite very contrasting geographical and climatic characteristics (from subarctic to tropical) with their own contexts, these five partners have decided to cooperate to build a two-year project aimed at deepening the role of education in the fight against global warming and environmental transition, one of the priority themes in the European context. Beyond this major objective to improve the scientific knowledge of our students on the different themes of sustainable development, the project also relies on the creativity of the learners by using art as a way to express; theatre, fashion, cinema, drawings, literature are all media that will make it possible to give visibility and strengthen the impact of the various actions. In addition, strengthening the feeling of European and international citizenship and the role of school authorities in decision-making is also the ambition of this project which plans to hear the opinions of students gathered in councils to make them actors of their production and their learning. The other ambition is to strengthen their language skills in English and the other languages of the partners, French, German and Spanish. The project provides for the mobility of more than 80 pupils from 14 to 16 year old, as well as about 40 educational staff. Participants are selected based on their motivation and interest in the fight against global warming. The organisers are keen to allow students with less opportunity to participate in the project and are committed to ensuring as many as possible. Five short-term mobility activities are planned, and online work throuhout the project, specially with the eTwinning platform and social media. Starting in October 2020, a joint staff training event is planned to allow coordinators to benefit from the same level of information on digital tools and the preparation of student mobility. The synergy between new technologies and environmental protection and power generation is the main focus of this first activity. Thereafter, the mobilities planned between March 2021 and May 2022 in Galicia, Reunion Island, North Rhine-Westphalia and Dalmatia are short-term student exchanges with different objectives related to sustainable development, ecotourism and the issue of waste treatment in the first place, the preservation of biodiversity with the participation of the National Park of Reunion Island afterwards, the reduction of food waste and finally the fight against global warming during the last mobility. Our methodology is based on the use of art to communicate. Through this project, we want to obtain quality artistic productions that will be shared to the greatest number thanks to digital tools. We will be able to assess the impact of our actions by conducting qualitative surveys at the beginning and end of the project with the participants and the educational community. It will also assess the improvement of our students' performance in several disciplines, including science and modern languages. In the long term, we want to sustain actions related to sustainable development based on experiences with our partners. It is also about continuing the exchanges between our schools by creating matches, which would allow our students to find places of training and create other European mobility projects.
SmARTecology was born in October 2019 from a meeting between representatives from different institutions in five countries with very different profiles: Iceland, Spain, Croatia, Germany and France. Despite their very contrasting geographical and climatic characteristics (from subarctic to tropical) and their own specific contexts, these five partners decided to work together to build a project whose objective was to explore the role of education in the fight against global warming and the environmental transition, one of the priority themes in the national and European context. Over and above this major objective of improving our pupils' scientific knowledge of the various themes of sustainable development, the project also relied on the creativity of the learners by using art as a means of expression; theatre, music, fashion, film, the plastic arts and literature were all media that helped to give visibility to and strengthen the impact of our various actions. In addition, strengthening the feeling of European citizenship and the role of secondary school authorities in decision-making was also one of the ambitions of this project, and we enabled the pupils to take ownership of these themes, giving them the opportunity and the space to make proposals and become real players in the project. Finally, another ambition of the project was to strengthen the skills of the students. The project provided mobility for more than 60 pupils aged between 14 and 17, as well as around 30 educational staff. The participants were chosen on the basis of their motivation and their interest in the fight against global warming. The organisers were keen to enable pupils with the fewest opportunities to take part in the project, and are committed to ensuring that as many people as possible have access to it. Five short-term mobility activities were carried out. The trips were prepared in advance through distance learning activities and constant links between the coordinating teachers. Covid and the health crisis had an impact on the project, but thanks to a one-year extension, we were able to carry out all the activities initially planned. The first physical mobility took place in October 2021 and enabled the coordinators to benefit from the same level of information on digital tools and the preparation of student mobility. The synergy between new technologies and environmental protection, as well as electricity production, was the main theme of this first activity. Subsequently, the other visits to Galicia, Réunion, North Rhine-Westphalia and Dalmatia were short exchanges of pupils, each time with a different sustainable development objective: firstly, ecotourism and the issue of waste treatment; secondly, the preservation of biodiversity with the participation of the Réunion National Park; thirdly, the reduction of food waste and, finally, the fight against global warming during the last visit. A digital book has been produced. It brings together the pupils' artistic productions. We assessed the impact of our actions by carrying out qualitative surveys at the beginning and end of the project with the participants and the educational community.We assessed the improvement in our pupils' performance in several subjects, particularly science and modern languages. Thanks to this project, we have raised young people's awareness of the need to protect the environment and encouraged them to take up environmental careers. We have forged strong links between schools and are continuing our collaboration in various forms (eTwinning project, hosting jobshadowing, working on other European projects, etc.).