By implementing the project we wanted to raise awareness about environmental issues & encourage more sustainable behavior among students, teachers & the community. Our goals were to help young people understand the importance of protecting the planet, develop eco-friendly habits & take part in practical activities like clean-ups & upcycling workshops. We wanted to achieve changes in consumer habits, in attitudes towards recycling &climate change, to increase motivation to save &reuse products. Thus, our main objective was to develop the ecological awareness & active citizenship & to increase the quality & relevance of ecological activities in 6 partner schools. Our goal was to develop in our students key competences (digital, linguistic, entrepreneurial, etc.) & skills needed for the society like: problem solving, critical thinking, teamwork, decision making & creativity. They were developed through local & international ecological activities in interactive forms & methods: workshops, lectures, study visits, debates, greening activities etc. We also aimed to strengthen cooperation between partner schools, share good practices between teachers & give students the chance to learn & work together with others from different countries
We applied for the project because environmental education is rarely used in high school curricula in many European countries, especially in vocational schools, so it needs further exploration. We thought that students needed knowledge, skills, values & attitudes that would enable them to contribute to sustainable development & to organise or participate in ecological actions, which develop communicative & social skills. In this way they would become aware of the benefits of responsible interaction with the environment. Many teenagers especially from vocational schools don’t have proper ecological & consumer habits. They aren’t aware of importance of ecological actions, protecting the nature, being green & climate changes. We noticed a strong need to arm students with ecological & consumer habits & eco skills to prepare them to become more conscious consumers, more active & more ecologically oriented European citizens. The main purpose of having this partnership project was to create awareness that the existing environmental problems we face in today’s world are global & similar in European countries. We wanted our students to get to know new ways to protect the environment & learn how to act locally to change into globally.