With this project we wanted to get our students, specially the ones with fewer resources, involved in environmental education and sustainability, making them understand the value of rural heritage and environment. another purpose was to improve digital skills, through online contact: videoconferences; communication groups through messaging, social networking, and mainly to increase our students' foreign language skills, particularly English, and thus provide them with a fundamental tool for approaching the European spirit, giving special atention to the inclusion of less privileged pupils giving them the opportunity to travel and be in contact with people from other countries. Apart from this, we were really interested in developing personal and social skills in our students, such as: project work, decision-making empowerment, teamwork, communication, flexibility, spirit of collaboration, creativity and citizenship. Besides, the school as well as the community were involved in encouraging and disseminating the potential of sustainable tourism in our region, through field trips and a study of the feasibility of this type of tourism, educating our students for entrepreneurship.
The Agrupamento de Escolas de Moura was a recently created public institution with education from Pre-school to Secondary. The object of this project is secondary school pupils, attending the 10th and 11th grades. Many of our students have serious economic needs and come from socially disadvantaged families. In total, the Grouping has approximately 1550 pupils from various ethnic groups, nationalities, and neighbouring areas, where a great diversity of cultures and customs can be observed. The Grouping, of which the Secondary School is a part, is in the interior of Portugal, more precisely in Baixo Alentejo, a territory that offers very few opportunities for its inhabitants, due to its geographical location and scarce business investment. However, recently there have been several projects in the area of environmental tourism as there is an increasing interest in tourism in this region, with projects like “ Parque Natural da Contenda'' that just started with guided tours to observe Nature and Wild Life, or Alqueva Dam, with some interesting project related to clean energy or the growing interest of the municipality in developing these economical areas.