The global climate emergency requires a collective effort in which schools must play a leading role. The Coordinating school I.I.S. Tartaglia Olivieri is located in Brescia, an area tormented by the effects of massive pollution of water, land and air due to the industrial apparatus, the incinerator not far from the city center and its geographical position, in the center of the Po Valley. This situation causes serious damage to the health of citizens and is the reason why the coordinating school has long been sensitive to environmental issues. The Bee Green project, based on the experience accumulated thanks to the projects already carried out in the past, will activate a collaboration between the school and local associations and between the three project partner schools in order to change the habits and behaviors of both the subjects involved and everyone the recipients of the dissemination actions. The Bee Green project sees collaborating in the construction of a sustainable future three schools very different in terms of organization and geographical location. The I.I.S. Tartaglia Olivieri from Brescia shares the experience accumulated during the previous two Erasmus projects with partner schools, never involved in Erasmus + projects before, but for some time now in contact with the coordinating school thanks to collaborations with individual teachers that took place within other Erasmus + projects. On the basis of the trust established between the teachers of the three Erasmus teams, the Bee Green project was born, already inaugurated through the use of the Twinspace activated in February 2020. The selected groups of students will participate in a two-year course in extracurricular hours during which they will deepen the environmental issues supported by experts and teachers. During the first phase, the students will deepen the environmental issues at a global level in preparation for the first mobility to be held in Portugal, where it will be possible to share the work carried out and how to approach the issue of protecting the oceans. The second phase, which will focus on the issue of the effects of global warming on the poles and the weather phenomena caused by climate change, will end with mobility in Finland. The third phase will focus on environmental damage in the Mediterranean and on migration caused by damage to the environment and will end with mobility in Italy. The students involved in the additional Bee Green course will transfer the skills acquired through peer to peer education actions to the Institute's classes. At the same time, with the support of the numerous associations present in the area and in particular of the Mistral Cooperative of Brescia, the coordinating Institute will organize a teacher training course open to internal staff and teachers coming also from other Institutes of the Province of Brescia. During the first year of the project, the teachers will receive theoretical-practical training on environmental protection and during the workshops they will produce teaching materials that will be shared on a project site. During the second year, with the support of English native teachers who are experts in CLIL methodologies, the same courses will be transformed into didactic courses in English. The enhancement of the English language is in fact a necessary prerequisite for participation in the global collaboration network which alone can cope with a global emergency. In this way the I.I.S. Tartaglia Olivieri promises to make the most of the new opportunities that will be offered by the introduction of the Civic Education discipline expected from the 2020/2021 school year. The 33-hour annual package to be included in the curriculum provides for the discussion of the environmental issue. Since the discipline will be distributed among the teachers of the subjects already present in the curriculum, we believe it is urgent to activate quality training courses and produce specific teaching materials to make the implementation of the new law effective. We believe that authentic teaching has always been dependent first of all on a good example and, consequently, we think it is necessary, while deepening the topic from a theoretical point of view both on a global and local level, to seek cutting-edge methodologies of proven efficacy and to promote new forms of collaboration between teachers and students in order to organize concrete actions that reduce the impact of the ecological footprint of the subjects involved in the project. This is the reason why a week of teacher training is scheduled at Lyceo Kuopio, located in Finland, a country at the forefront of both for environmental policies and for teaching. At the partner school there is the English-language International Baccalaureate Diploma Program which makes it possible to create job shadowing experiences aimed at the acquisition of teaching-methodological skills and the enhancement of English.
The global climate emergency calls for a collective effort in which schools must play a leading role. The Bee Green project has established a collaboration between schools and local associations with the aim of changing the habits and behaviors of both the parties involved and all recipients of dissemination actions. Based on the trust built among the teachers of the three Erasmus teams during previous Erasmus+ projects, the Bee Green project was born, preceded by the activation of the Twinspace in February 2020. Due to the pandemic, the planned activities were carried out over three years instead of two. Achieving all the identified objectives in the application phase was made possible by the extension of the project deadline granted by the National Agency. The coordinating school, I.I.S. Tartaglia Olivieri, is located in Brescia, in an area heavily affected by the effects of massive pollution of water, soil, and air due to the local industrial complex and its geographic location in the heart of the Po Valley. This situation causes serious health problems for the citizens and is the reason why the coordinating school has long been sensitive to environmental issues. The partner schools are Kuopion Lyseon Lukio, located in Kuopio, Finland, and Colégio Internato Claret, a high school in Porto, Portugal. The main objective of the Bee Green project was the exchange of best practices. To this end, three very different schools were identified in terms of organization and geographic location. This allowed for a deep exploration of environmental issues from different perspectives and the comparison of various educational methodologies. The schools selected three groups of students from mixed classes aged 15 to 19 who participated in a three-year extracurricular course. The students delved into environmental issues with the support of experts and teachers, preparing to share their work with project partners who they stayed in contact with through social media and Twinspace. During the first year, global environmental issues were addressed in preparation for the first mobility, which took place in Finland due to the rescheduling of activities. Here, the students shared their work, addressing the effects of global warming on Nordic regions and the meteorological phenomena caused by the climate crisis. The second phase focused on the protection of oceans and concluded with mobility in Portugal. The third phase delved into the link between human rights and the climate crisis, concluding with mobility in Italy, a country at the center of the Mediterranean. The students involved in the Bee Green additional course transferred the knowledge they gained to the school's regular classes through peer-to-peer education actions and the involvement of foreign students who were guests during the mobilities. For dissemination purposes, the coordinating school also organized two prize competitions: one for the project logo design and the other, open to all schools in the province of Brescia, for the production of videos aimed at raising awareness about environmental issues. In addition to actions aimed at involving students, the project focused on teacher training. During the first year, with the support of numerous local associations and in collaboration with the Mistral Cooperative of Brescia, the coordinating institute organized a teacher training course open to teachers in the province of Brescia. Due to the pandemic, the lessons were held on Meet. The response was excellent, with 180 participants and an average of 110 attendees at each meeting. During the first 6 sessions, teachers received theoretical training on environmental protection, and during 4 workshops, they worked in groups to produce educational materials. In the third year, with the support of the CLIL Lunardi network in Brescia, a free workshop was funded with project funds. During this workshop, English-language educational paths on the ecological crisis were developed to be included in civic education programs. Furthermore, to spread advanced and proven teaching methodologies, a teacher training week was held in Finland in September 2022, a country at the forefront of both environmental policies and education. Kuopio High School offers the English-language International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme, which made it possible to carry out a job shadowing experience aimed at acquiring teaching and methodological skills and enhancing English proficiency. All project activities were publicized through meetings with journalists and involvement of local authorities. The course videos, student-produced videos and presentations, and teaching materials are freely available here: https://beegreen.netboard.me/erasmus/?link=gz1k2CFO-2yZJyl82-B0mZFeB5 In October, a dissemination event will be recorded during which the teachers involved in the training in Finland will report on the results of the experimentation of new methodologies carried out during the 2022-2023 academic year.