Creating Really Environmentally Conscious Students – because climate has no borders. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Creating Really Environmentally Conscious Students – because climate has no borders.

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: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

CREATING REALLY ENVIRONMENTALLY CONSCIOUS STUDENTS (CRECS) is a project aimed at making our pupils conscious and aware of the environment and the climate, because “climate has no borders”.

Background : the topic of the project is of concern to all the world’s population and everyone can have an important impact, even in their day-to-day actions, thus solutions can only come from education (environmental awareness) and international collaboration. This will be made possible by involving pupils from different countries, allowing them to discover various approaches to environmental issues, which can be very different throughout the European continent, due to different geography and ressources, cultural differences, economic pressure, political choices.
Objectives : this multidisciplinary project is intended to help our learners with basic training in a variety of topics (e.g. mathematics, literacy…), awareness of cultural differences through Europe, foreign language skills (the project’s language is English), and obviously environmental concerns in general. Solutions to environmental issues can only come from international cooperation as the impact of climate change is global (because “climate has no borders”). We must prepare our pupils to think globally on these topics.
Participants : 3 secondary schools take part in the project, in Denmark, France, and the Netherlands. Each school will involve 16 pupils over the course of 2 years. The pupils will be aged 14 to 16.
Activities : while we are aware we cannot give a comprehensive account of environmental issues, we have decided to focus on some key elements such as :
– understanding the current situation : brainstorming and debates about climate change and sustainability, research and surveys about energy use at home, in a school, nationally,
– analysing the progress made in the use of energetic resources since the Rio+20 meeting in 2004, and the 17 UN goals for sustainable development, through the study of documents, interviews of professionals, visits of industrial sites,
– comparing different energy models and transport management in the three countries, visiting electricity production sites, making models,
– creating information panels aimed at the general public and pupils locally, studying the UN goal number 13 (climate action).
– summing up all the data, results and proposals for improvement /development of sustainable solutions in a final common video.
Methodology : most of the time, the pupils will be working in groups, and we will be forming transnational groups of 6 made up of 2 pupils from each school. The common platform we will use will be eTwinning. The topics of CRECS needing transversal competences, teachers from different subjects will be devoting some of their teaching time to our topics. The groups of pupils will be encouraged to work more autonomously as the project progresses, though with guidance and support from the teachers. The methods used will include debates and exchanges, conferences, visits, interviews, practical work (building models) and the use of SRUM to help plan the activities. The pupils will be spending time in classrooms, the documentation centre, around the school grounds but also outside the school during visits.
Results and impact : the concrete results will take the form of information panels to be displayed locally in schools, libraries and local authorities, and towards the end of the project, a common video to sum up all the information gathered, the projections for the future and the pupils’ own proposals for developing sustainable solutions. This will be made available to a large public thanks to the use of internet. The impact at each school will be obvious because other classes will be invited to see and discuss the panels and video, but it is also intended that the panels be displayed outside the school (local libraries and town halls), so the general public can also benefit from the results of this project. The implication of the media will help disseminate the information.
Long term benefits : for the pupils, new and greener behaviour will become automatic after having spent time on the project, and they will in time transmit this to their families. For the schools, the discovery of the Ecoschool project by two of the partners will motivate them to adhere to the label, the results of CRECS will be used as a teaching tools in future classes, new exchanges will take place to follow up on the project, including new topics (waste management, water quality…).
We are all part of Europe and within the last years our curriculums have been amended due to inspiration from research from abroad. We want to be open to the world and to teach and show our pupils the importance of being part of an international community (the EU) – with benefits and responsibilities – and thus their European citizenship.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/99402/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 96288 Eur

Project Coordinator

Association Familiale de Gestion du lycée Polyvalent Privé ROC FLEURI & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Auraskolen
• Sint Michael College