The project comes from the importance of reducing the environmental impact of the lifestyle of the European population, and from the desire to activate awareness in young people regarding the wealth of their own territory. The main purpose is to introduce them to the concepts of "slow" tourism and to actually put these principals into practice by visiting the territories of each partner. We also want to spread the outdoor culture, with the aim of triggering virtuous behavior regarding the use of one's free time. The students, after acquiring the necessary skills in video editing, will use technology as a tool to promote the above. In addition, they will actively work for the protection of the territory as they will check pathways condition and will report it through developing an app to map points that need maintenance. The project will directly involve 24 students aged between 16 and 19 from three secondary schools belonging to complementary backgrounds: -IIS "Q.Sella" of Biella, in Italy, located in an alpine province; -IES Belén of Malaga, Spain, located in a Mediterranean tourist area; -Bahcelievler Aydin Dogan MTAL of Istanbul, Turkey, in an urbanized context. The three partner schools offer technical and vocational training courses in the field of information technology and media. The first planned activities consist of preparatory courses. These will take place at the Biella school, and will be focused on the topics that will be addressed during the project: -the principles of sustainable development and of the impact of tourism; -video shooting and video editing; -coding of an app; -outdoor and sports experiences. In the following months, the schools will carry on the work simultaneously, with periodic online meetings. The provided activities will be: a detailed study of the philosophy and the practices of "slow" tourism, the creation of a logo, a peer-education on video editing. We also plan three exchanges, one per each partner school, designed to apply the knowledge and the skills acquired in the previous period. In practice, we will walk the territories of schools on foot, exploring them from a naturalistic, cultural, sporting and artistic point of view. During the excursions, information and digital material (video shooting, photographs) will be collected and, subsequently, will be processed to produce the digital outputs. The development of the beta version of the app will be carried out especially in the period between the exchanges. Finally, students will hold some public presentation events. After the theoretical training phase, a "learning by doing" methodology, aimed at the active participation of pupils, will be adopted. The students will put their digital knowledge into practice and will experience the principles of sustainable tourism firsthand. They will work in groups and peer-education will be encouraged. We will use eTwinnings to foster collaboration among partner schools. We intend to produce several outputs: -a research on sustainability and slow tourism; -a "tourist guide for slow travelers"; -a series of "logbook" videos in which students can describe the experience and the visited places with a young perspective; -the report that highlights the critical points of the pathways, that can be delivered to local authorities; -the app’s beta version with the feature to report the problems encountered on the paths and to promote the maintenance interventions. Furthermore, we expect a strengthening in the theoretical and practical learning of all the issues involved in the project and a development of the key competences (communication, entrepreneurship, foreign languages, digital technologies, social and civic competences). Finally, we believe the project could produce the long-term follow-ups below: -The participants will be more informed on environmental matter and will be able to make more critical and aware future choices. We hope they will consider their territory as an integral part of a wider community, the Europe, and will be involved developing it. -Computer and digital skills will constitute an important technical background that can be used in the job market. -The app’s beta version can be implemented by each partner school and maybe used by the local authorities as a tool to support upkeep interventions. -The eTwinning use and the established contacts will help partner schools to be involved more and more effectively in the European and Erasmus+ context. -The collaboration started with local authorities is an opportunity to network and to offer support mutually. -The technological tools got for the project will be useful to going on teaching related subjects.
The project comes from the importance of reducing the environmental impact of our lifestyle, and from the desire to activate awareness in teenagers regarding the wealth of their own territory. The project took place from September 2020 to June 2022, during the pandemic period of COVID-19 which inevitably modified its development. It directly involved about 35 students aged between 16 and 19 from three schools belonging to complementary backgrounds: - ITIS “Q.Sella” of Biella, in Italy, located in an Alpine province; - IES Belén of Malaga, Spain, located in a Mediterranean tourist area; - Bahcelievler Aydin Dogan MTAL from Istanbul, Turkey, in an urbanized context. The three partner schools offer technical and vocational training courses in the field of information technology and media. During the first year, the main purpose was to introduce students to the concepts of "slow" tourism through an educational path made of lessons, an online exchange, remote group work and presentations. The principles of sustainable development and in particular the impact of tourism were investigated. In this, as well as in all the other proposed activities, we have used a methodology based on "learning by doing" and aimed at the active participation of pupils. Students often worked in teams and we encouraged peer-education. The logo contest was one of the first activities made in this way. Starting from November 2021, we managed to do three short exchanges, one in each school, where the students met each other and discovered their respective territories, despite the heavy adaptations imposed by the covid-19 pandemic. The practical application of "slow" tourism principles was limited by health restrictions, so we had to give up a very significant part of the project: walking along a path for several days, staying all together in self-managed hostels. Therefore, during our exchanges each group stayed each night at the same hotel and we have taken daily trips. Only during the last exchange in Biella we could spent two days all together in a mountain hostel. Anyway, we always tried to move on foot or by public transport and to visit areas not affected by mass tourism. To use our free time in a better and healthier way, we also wanted to promote the outdoor culture. During the three exchanges, we had various mountain hiking and city walking, a rowing boat trip and an afternoon spent at an outdoor adventure park in the woods, sometimes with the help of sports associations and local guides. We gave some video editing lessons, both online and face-to-face. The students could use and manage different tools (video camera, go-pro) and several software (CapCut, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Premiere), using technology to document the activities. The Italian school has carried out a complete course on the "Dart / Flutter" language for App development, extended to a group of fifth grade students. We produced the following outputs: - slides on sustainability and slow tourism; - a "mini travel guide for slow travellers"; - several videos about the Erasmus+ experience and the places we visited; - the creation of a beta version App that allows hikers to report problems on trails they walk. At the end, we noticed an improvement in the theoretical and practical learning of all the project topics and a strengthening of key competences: communication, entrepreneurship, foreign languages, digital technologies, social and civic competences. Finally, we think that the project may have produced the following long-term effects: - participants are more aware on environmental issues and will be able to make more critical future choices. We hope they will consider their territory as an integral part of a wider community, the Europe, and that they will be involved in developing it; - the digital skills constitute a technical background that can also be used in the job market; - the beta version of the app can be further developed by any interested user because the license is open source; - the eTwinning use and the established contacts will help partner schools to be involved more and more effectively in the European and Erasmus+ context; - the collaboration started with local authorities is an opportunity to network and to offer support mutually; - the technological tools got for the project will be useful to going on teaching related subjects.