We had five key objectives, for staff/pupils to: 1. Understand water pollution and climate change as a global problem. The schools had localities of water in common (the Irish and Estonian schools were located on the coast and the Spanish school - the marsh). By pupils and staff completing local field trips and sharing findings with one another further understanding of the impact of water pollution on human health, marine life, climate change, aesthetic damage was developed. 2. Develop alternative sustainable uses for litter. Each school introduced new sustainable pedagogical practices to one another. 3. Share best practice in environmental education through information exchange, and teacher mobility. The mobilites were instrumental in professional development and the common padlet proved to be a long-term resource for even after the conclusion of the project. 4. Observe best early education practices in the area of environmental care. This took place through information exchange on the padlet and jobshadowing opportunities in montessoris and primary school on mobilities. 5. Experience a shared identify as European schools. This was developed by learning about one another through the padlet, ebooks, mobilities etc
We applied for this project as all three schools feel passionate about developing a respect for the environment and and an understanding of raising awareness of the importance of combatting climate change in their pupils. This falls under the horizontal priority of "environment and fight against climate change". The pupils in all three schools are very young and consequently at learning stages of development were they are predominantly focused on themselves and their immediate environment, thus the idea of climate change as a common global problem is a difficult one for them to comprehend. By engaging in a project that began with an exploration of their local environment, we addressed the need for the children to extend their understanding of local problems to areas further away. By interacting with other children of a similar age group, completing similar tasks and sharing common problems in the three localities we allowed the pupils to understand our interdependence on the environment in a global sense and to move from identifying problems to a place of suggesting solutions to problems and beginning to implement them. For staff too, sharing pedagogical practice addressed the need for professional development in this area.