1 Future – 2 Schools – 3 Rs: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse! Erasmus Project

Project Title

1 Future – 2 Schools – 3 Rs: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse!

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Our project arises from the general need to raise environmental awareness that we detected in both, the Spanish and the German, high schools. In addition, we realized that both schools would benefit from each other by sharing already existing experience and by offering students new insights which go beyond their everyday life. Whereas the German high school has already implemented green alternatives into their school life, which will be partly integrated into the Spanish school life throughout the project, the Spanish school, situated in a region affected by mass tourism and farming, can offer a great variety of activities that make students aware of problems, challenges and alternatives for a more sustainable behaviour. In the course of the project at hand, students will notice that a European challenge such as global warming can only be tackled through international exchange, collaborations and mutual enrichment. Therefore, this project also aims to equip students with good communications skills and strategies and will show them the benefit of working together in the European Union, thus amblifying their cultural awareness.
The project intends to include 14 students attending grade 9 and two long-term students attending grade 10 per school and per school year. We chose this age group because we are convinced that sensitivity to sustainability should be built or strengthened within puberty. Whereas the exchange group in grade 9 will work on more general issues concerning sustainability, interested students, who successfully apply for the long-term stay, will continue and extend their knowledge from grade 9 more profoundly. Besides the responsible persons for the project and the above-mentioned students, other teachers and students, especially the ones involved in the topic sustainability, will participate in the project as well.
In accordance with the title of our project, “1 Future – 2 Schools – 3 Rs: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse!”, the students are going to focus on one of the different Rs each year: Recycling in the first year, Reducing Waste in the second year, and Reusing in the third year. The products, the material and the knowledge are going to be used for our final product, our game on ecology and sustainability “The 3 Rs: Recycle – Reduce – Reuse” that will be at hand to be used in classes and we will collect all teaching material on sustainability in a bank of activities that can later on be used by other staff to sensitize other youngsters to the topic
Each year is divided into two long-term study mobilities and two short-term exchanges, one of each in Germany and one in Spain. In the long-term mobilities, two or three students of the partner country are going to prepare the short-term exchanges by a deeper, three months analysis of the following topic so that they will be able to help preparing and organizing the workshops and they are going to help implementing measures to improve sustainability in the partner school.
In the short-term exchanges, the groups of students are going to work on different topics linked to sustainability, thus acquiring knowledge, producing material and making them think on questions that are going to be collected and used for the final product, our game.
In between the mobilities, there will be different activities, preparing and amplifying the work done during the mobilities via eTwinning. The students are going to get into contact with and knowing each other, they will share their presentations and creative work. Finally, the project will be presented to all the staff members and the entire educational community. The types of activities planned range from projects presentations, workshops to contests, cultural fairs and ICT activities for linguistic competence.
The game “3 Rs: Recycle, Reduce, Reuse”, which is the final result of the project at hand, will bring together results of three thematic focuses (Recycle, Reduce and Reuse)
The game itself is supposed to pass on the students’ findings about environmental awareness with regard to their daily life and their impact on a more global reach It will consequently serve future students to reflect upon their behaviour and to promote change. We want students to reflect about their ecological footprint in a natural way and to put into practice the alternatives developed in the activities designed in the project. Thanks to this, we will be able to direct our steps towards educating EU citizens who are aware that positive change is needed in every single individual but works best when worked on together with other members of the European Union.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99236 Eur

Project Coordinator

Evangelisches Heidehof Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• IES Hermanos Machado