Financial status of some of the families whose pupils attending schools of this project partners is relatively low. Through observations of daily school life of these pupils and overall knowledge of this kind of families, it is possible to say that climate change and related issues are not in first rank of their must-do list. Idea of attracting attention to recycling, renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change and starting action against all of this can highly find no acceptance in these families. That hypothesis forced us to make a survey about this subject mentioned above. Some of the results were satisfactory but overall results were clearly showing that pupils need more effort to clearly understand climate change, environmental protection and energy efficiency and increase their awareness. To increase knowledge and awareness about climate change and energy issues of our pupils, we decided to start a project, aiming encourage our pupils them to take initiative, making them responsible individuals in accordance to EU citizenship. As seen in Europe 2020 strategy, the European Union's "aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, increase the share of renewable energy to at least 20% of consumption, and achieve energy savings of 20% or more", has supported our idea to produce a environment, climate change and energy related project. Following these goals, we want to increase the environmental awareness of our pupils in accordance to EU social life and EU citizenship in which we plan to work with pupils from various EU and Erasmus+ countries. We aim an increased awareness and knowledge in our pupils about climate change. We aim to encourage our pupils in taking initiatives to reduce the effects of climate change, to integrate recycling into their lives and to provide information on energy efficiency and the effects of energy production on nature. There are five schools in our project: Bulgaria: Parvo osnovno uchilishte "Sveti Sveti Kiril i Metodii" (primary school, 51 teachers, 580 pupils) Italy: Istituto comprensivo Falcone Borsellino (middle school, 120 teachers, 1200 pupils) Portugal: Escola Secundária José Falcão (secondary school, 109 teachers, 1041 pupils)) Romania: Liceul Teoretic Miron Costin Pascani (educational institution, 75 teachers, 1500 pupils) Turkey: Şehit Adil Erdoğan Ortaokulu (middle school, 140 teachers, 2300 pupils) There will be five planned international mobilities in project. All mobilities are planned as short-term exchanges of groups of pupils. Each partner will plan and host a mobility. The activities which will be listed below, are planned to support goals of the project. Activities are designed to provide participation of pupils. Activities planned in the project, will start at the same time in partner countries, regarding planned period listed in timetable. Many events have been planned, but collecting plastic bottles will be the most important activity of this project. Here is a list of activities planned: - Making a short film with the slogan "Plastic is everywhere, yet has no place in nature", - Having a climate strike, - Creating an awareness board - Getting electronic disposal including batteries under control, - Visiting recycling facilities, - Visiting energy production facilities and observing the effects of energy production on nature, - Doing a project logo competition, - Doing a cartoon competition about climate change and recycling, - Doing banner and t-shirt competitions, - Making inquiries about changes in sea levels and the average temperature. During the project, the innovative methods we plan to use consist of observation, group activities, presentations, Q&A and brainstorming. As a result, we want to see: -that pupils prefer reusable products over disposable products, -that the residual wastes in schools do not include recyclable waste such as plastic or paper, -that products harmful to the nature such as batteries are separated and collected in a specific area for them. Students of partner schools are expected to achieve the same achievements. Increasing awareness of parents and other individuals around students about climate change and its impacts, and their contribution to recycling is expected. The result we want to achieve for schools is to direct students, who are the decision makers of the future, to act with knowledge, skills and attitudes about the problems of global resources, to try to integrate ecological school practices to be developed in cooperation with EU level in the curriculum and to motivate students to participate in ecological activities.
The financial and cultural situation of some families whose children attend the schools of this project's partners was relatively low. Through observation of the daily school life of these pupils and general knowledge of this type of family, it was possible to state that focusing on recycling, renewable energy, energy efficiency, climate change and taking action against all of these were not at the forefront of their to-do list. Students needed more efforts to clearly understand climate change, environmental protection and energy efficiency and increase their awareness. To increase knowledge and awareness of climate change and the energy problems of our students, we have started a project, with the aim of encouraging them to undertake initiative, making them responsible subjects according to European citizenship. Be seen in Europe 2020 strategy, the European Union “aims to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20%, and to increase them share of renewable energy equal to at least 20% of consumption and achieve energy savings equal to or greater than 20%, has supported our idea of producing a project related to the environment, climate change and energy. With this project, we have increased the environmental awareness of our pupils in accordance with the social life of the EU and European citizenship by having them work with pupils from various EU countries and Erasmus+. We have managed to increase our pupils' awareness and knowledge about climate change. We encouraged our pupils in taking initiatives to reduce the effects of climate change, to integrate recycling into their lives and provide information on energy efficiency and the effects of energy production on nature. Five schools initially took part in the project: Bulgaria: Parvo osnovno uchilishte "Sveti Sveti Kiril i Methodisti" (primary school, 51 teachers, 580 pupils) Italy: Falcone Borsellino comprehensive institute (middle school, 120 teachers, 1200 pupils) Portugal: Escola Secundária José Falcão (secondary school, 109 teachers, 1041 pupils)) Romania: Liceul Teoretic Miron Costin Pascani (school, 75 teachers, 1500 students) Turkey: Şehit Adil Erdoğan Ortaokulu (middle school, 140 teachers, 2300 pupils). Unfortunately the Portuguese partner withdrew from the project shortly after it started. Therefore, the LTTA in Romania was organized with more students in order to cover the number of participants proposed, and an extra LTTA in Bulgaria was organized only for the Romanian partner. The project included five international mobilities. All mobilities were planned as short-term exchanges groups of students. Each partner planned and hosted one mobility, except Bulgaria which hosted 2 mobilities. Activities were planned to support the project objectives. The activities were designed to ensure the participation of students. Due to the Covid period, the activities envisaged by the project were carried out for an initial period separately in the different institutes and then shared online through publication on E-twinning, with meetings on zoom, with publications on Facebook, by email, whatsapp, etc. All implementations in partner countries have started, as expected within the timetable. There were many events scheduled, but the collection of plastic bottles was the most important activities of this project. Below is the list of activities carried out: - Made a short film with the slogan "Plastic is everywhere, but has no place in nature", - Organized climate strikes; - Monitored the disposal of electronic devices, including batteries; - Recycling plants visited; - Visited energy production plants and observed the effects of energy production on nature; - Participated in a competition for the project logo; - Created a cartoon competition on climate change and recycling; - Created contests for banners and t-shirts; - Carry out investigations on changes in sea level and average temperature. During the project, the innovative methods we used were: observation, group activities, presentations, questions and answers and brainstorming. As a result, we got: - that pupils prefer reusable products to disposable ones, - that residual waste in schools does not include recyclable waste such as plastic or paper, - that products harmful to nature such as batteries are separated and collected in an area designated for them. Students from partner schools achieved the same results: - The awareness of parents and other people around students regarding climate change and its impacts and their contribution to recycling has increased. We have directed students, who are the decision makers of the future, to act with knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding questions related to global resources, to try to integrate green school practices to be developed cooperatively with the EU level in the curriculum and motivate students to participate in green activities. Our goal has been achieved: to encourage them to do it take action to reduce the effects of climate change, to make recycling a standard of their lives and to increase their knowledge of energy efficiency.