Culture & History of Cacao Erasmus Project

Project Title

Culture & History of Cacao

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Overcoming skills mismatches (basic/transversal)

Project Summary

CONTEXT/BACKGROUND
Secondary school students still learn separate school subjects at lessons and lack the interdisciplinary, global understanding and competences needed in the 21st century. Project weeks, built around a certain topic with an inquiry and competence based aspect, help to gain such skills through various collaborative and reflective activities, encouraging creativity – “learning by doing”.
Our project follows the history of a simple product: chocolate, from the discovery of cocoa beans by Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, adding sugar to them in the Azores, chocolate making and flavouring traditions in the ’Chocolate Valley’ of Italy, producing the famous Belgian chocolate to introducing Fair Trade for our sustainable future. It finishes with the Hungarian Chocolate Project Week as a good practice. The entire project may be taylored to the needs and educational program of partner schools.
OBJECTIVES
• to support students in acquiring both global & key competences, understanding our common history and contributing to our sustainable future,
• to encourage social inclusion and help to prevent early school leaving at each partner by implementing an interdisciplinary project week,
• to build a European network of schools and teachers, to give them tools to help lifelong learning of their students, thus to contribute to the development of the involved schools in the long term.
NUMBER AND PROFILE OF PARTICIPANTS
• 5 European secondary schools in Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Spain, which all have practice in transnational projects and are ready to start a new collaboration;
• 2-3 teachers (of English, arts, history, geography, science, religion, etc.) in each school;
• about 25 students in each school (14-17 years old, with gender balance), altogether 125 students, 40 of them with fewer opportunities.
DESCRIPTION OF ACTIVITIES
The project starts with a joint staff training in Budapest, Hungary, in October 2019 to learn about eTwinning (TwinSpace) and make a teachers’ manual for the student exchanges to be used as guidelines throughout the project.
It will be followed by 5 short term exchanges of pupils, one at each partner:
• ’A Journey from Cacao to Chocolate’ – Barcelona, Spain – January 2020
• ’At the Crossroads of Chocolate and Sugar’ – Angra do Heroismo, Portugal – April 2020
• ’From Bean to Brain’ – Pisa, Italy – October 2020;
• ’From Colonialism to Fair Trade’– Ghent, Belgium – February 2021;
• Chocolate Project Week – Budapest, Hungary – April 2021.
METHODOLOGY
There will be activity, inquiry and competence based, non formal methods used – field and Internet research, laboratory work, interactive & creative workshops. Educational visits to museums, factories, monasteries, castles, community shops and cafés combined with seminars and workshops will activate students’ interest and raise their awareness of history, production, consumption and sustainable future.
• AT THE JOINT STAFF TRAINING: presentations, reports, analysis, discussions, brainstorming, peer to peer learning, editing teachers’ manual.
• AT AFTER-SCHOOL WORKSHOPS FOR STUDENTS: group and pair work, presenting to an audience, research about history, geography, partner schools and countries; home assignments before exchanges, collaborating on the TwinSpace, editing digital project journal, etc.
• AT STUDENT EXCHANGES: ’learning by doing’ – transnational group or pair work, peer to peer learning; educational visits, interactive workshops, presenting to an audience, discussions, games, intercultural learning, working on the TwinSpace, etc.
RESULTS AND IMPACT
PRODUCTS
• teachers’ manual – created at the joint staff training, revised after exchanges and uploaded to the TwinSpace with free access for the public,
• digital project journal (5 editions) – after each student exchange, participants will make an edition about their activities and results,
• board games created and printed.
IMPACT ON PARTNER SCHOOLS
• the project will enhance their educational programs with a project week using non formal, inquiry and activity based methods.
IMPACT ON PARTICIPATING TEACHERS
• the project will contribute to the development of their motivation, attitude, professional skills and methods, English and ICT competences and help to prevent professional burnout.
IMPACT ON PARTICIPATING STUDENTS
• participating students will find school more attractive and their academic performance will improve due to the learning outcomes of interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, creative activities;
• the inclusion of students with fewer opportunities in the project will help their social integration.
LONG TERM BENEFITS
• students of the partner schools will actively support fair trade and sustainable future.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 164838 Eur

Project Coordinator

KOZGAZDASAGI POLITECHNIKUM ALTERNATIV GIMNAZIUM & Country: HU

Project Partners

• Liceo Scientifico Dini
• Sint-Janscollege
• Fundació Escoles Garbí
• Escola Básica e Secundária Tomás de Borba