Our world has been struggling with oxygen starvation in recent years. Cities face many negative factors that pollute the air like smokes and wastes from factories, the burning of fossil fuels, household cleaning products and overpopulation. European Environment Agency (EEA) stated in the latest “Environmental Status” report that Europe is facing unprecedented environmental challenges. In EEA’s 2018 report, it was stated that air pollution has been decreasing throughout his union, but this situation still causes 480 thousand premature deaths every year. It is apparently seen that the number of people who die because of air pollution is much more than the ones that die because of other reasons. Among the studies about pollution; to set limits and target values for air quality, to encourage people using public transportation in order to reduce pollutant emissions from vehicles especially in crowded cities, to protect and enhance green areas can be counted. All these measures have prevented air pollution up to a point. In addition, industrial products have become indispensable in many areas of our lives. It is a fact that we naturally face the negative effects of these products in all indoor spaces. The products that we use indoors such as detergent, ink, glue, building materials, paint, fabric and paper issues. They produce rodon gas, petrol, ammonia and trichlorethylene. And also, we live together with radiation containing tools such as phones, tablets, computers and copiers. It is stated that numerous negative effects that can be observed in humans as a result of air pollution. These effects are mental disorders, irritability, chronic asthma, cough, nose-eye-skin allergies, throat destruction, decreased breathing capacity and even cancer diseases. The importance of the quality of air that we breathe indoors is increasing day by day. That is the starting point of our project. The overall aim of the project is to increase the quality of the air we breathe indoors. Because we want to reduce the harm caused by these negative effects. We want to create more liveable areas for future generations and provide plants that increase the air quality in living spaces. With this project we want to ensure that indoor planting is done consciously if we can teach Botany and Ecology as optional lessons or as project works at schools, we will create awareness about the importance of the indoor plants that clean the air we breathe. NASA has analysed 50 plants which clean the air for every 10m2 in indoor places. Some of these plants are spathipyllum wallisi, chrysanthemum, parthcnocissus, liriope muscari, ladypalm, gerber daisy and massengena. The project partners will grow plants that are suitable for their own climate conditions in their classes and permaculture gardens and also, they will explain the importance of this study to their students. We aim to make it a habit for future generations that growing these kinds of plants in all indoor places. Our project partners are from the schools of Turkey, Northern Republic of Macedonia, Romania, Portugal and Serbia. Each mobility group should be consisted of 4 teachers. The target groups of the project are teachers, students, parents and non-governmental organizations which are related to education. It is aimed to transfer our achievements to each other and want to be effective in larger groups then. Partners will create exemplary schools and classes in their environment, the project experience of teachers will increase, teachers’ and students’ willingness to produce and participate in new projects will increase, schools will attract students’ interest with their projects and different teaching methods and with the help of all these positive effects, dropping out of the schools is to be prevented to some extent. Moreover, participants will be able to improve their English, learn new words and idioms from each other and socialize with different culture’s people. The partners will tell the beneficial aspects of various plants in their own regions to other partners, the use of plants for different purposes will become widespread, the forgotten secrets of herbal cures will be passed on from generations to generations, it will be provided to grow medical and aromatic plants, to produce worm humus. Even worm humus will be able to sold in the future. All the planned events will be shared on web page of the schools, EBA news, e-Twinning, Erasmus Projects results platform and social media accounts that will be created for the project. For all activities, a project booklet with the title of “Let Us Be a Breath for Future” will be created.
Our world has been struggling with lack of oxygen recently. Cities are faced with many negative factors that pollute the air such as population, transportation and industry. Especially industrial products are in many areas of our lives and we are faced with the negative effects of them in indoor places. Chemicals such as rhodone gas, benzene, ammonia and trichloroethylene coming out of objects such as detergents, building materials, and fabrics used indoors threaten our health. Furthermore, we live together with devices such as phones, tablets, PCs and photocopiers so we are exposed to radiation. In addition, as a result of exposure to air pollution, negative effects such as lethargy, mental disorders, chronic upper respiratory tract diseases, decrease in breathing capacity and cancer are seen obviously. Every year a large number of people all over the world die due to them. Taking into account all of these, the importance of indoor air quality increases. That is why the project Let Us Be a Breathe for Future came to the fore. The general purpose of the project is to improve the quality of indoor air in order to reduce the harm caused by air pollution. Other objectives of the project are to teach future generations to create more livable spaces and to include plants that increase air quality in their living spaces and to ensure that they know the seeding, planting and care of these plants. As mentioned in NASA's research, there must be one air-purifying plant for each 10 m² indoors. 50 plants determined for this purpose are grown in different habitats. Some of them are easy to reach and budget friendly such as Spathipyllum Wallisii, Chrysanthemum, Hedera helix, Anthurium, Lady palm, Liriope muscari. Let Us Be A Breath for Future KA229 project was carried out between 2020-2023 under the coordination of Turkey with North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Portugal. Due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, the project started on the eTwinning platform in the 2020-2021 academic year with the participation of many teachers from different schools in Turkey and Europe. All of the activities mentioned below were carried out both online and face-to-face. Before the activities were implemented some experts gave information on the subject. Some of the activities were: logo and poster study; creating a seed collection from heirloom and hybrid seeds, sprouting these seeds in greenhouses, building permaculture gardens in schools, planting medicinal and aromatic plants in these gardens, sharing various recipes of medical and aromatic plants that have sunk into oblivion; herbarium; searching about project plants; info about project plants and details on school boards; introducing the project to the people working in different institutions and organizations by presenting plants taking place in the Project. Organizing various events within the scope of Erasmusdays; creating recycling products with the motto zero waste, displaying these products in schools and districts; utilization of kitchen waste by making compost manure; presenting products with various web 2.0 tools; visiting a worm castling facility , national park, greenhouse and botanical garden with students and teachers of the partner countries; participating in various environmental days and tree planting activities organized in the regions where the schools are located; social responsibilty projects in order to raise environmental awareness (such as “Earth and Water Days” etc.); in order to raise awareness about power of plants, climate change and air pollution; organizing painting and slogan contests and displaying them at school; organizing an exhibition of photograhs of people growing the air purifying plants in their houses and offices; placing these plants indoor places such as classrooms, teachers' room, workshops etc.; making air measurements in these places and evaluating the results in order to see the effect of plants on cleaning the air; searching the project effectiveness with various pre- and post-questionnaires; presenting and dissemination works for the Project by the help of using both national and international platforms such as Newspapers, TV programs, UPUES etc. All the activities and LTTA have led to the diversification of the project activities; on-site visits helped teachers to learn different education methods and increase their potential; in addition, visiting natural and cultural heritage widened the horizons of educators, asissting to recognize native and endemic plant species growing in natural areas, building intercultural interaction and friendships; the emergence of new project ideas. Also educators increased this effect with presentations in their countries. All events and more have been published on the project social media accounts, school websites and the Erasmus+ project results platform. As a final output, an e-book Let Us Be A Breath For Future has been prepared.