Let’s go green! – reuse, refuse, reduce, rethink, recycle Erasmus Project

Project Title

Let’s go green! – reuse, refuse, reduce, rethink, recycle

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: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Environment and climate change; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Context:
With Greta Thunberg`s launching of the “Fridays for future” movement she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change. Being a teenager, she especially appealed to the youth since it’s them who will face the worst effects. Using this enormous global spotlight our aim is to address the climate crisis. Without environmental action, the future of our planet would be doubtful. The more citizens do something to contribute to conservation and protecting the environment, the more resilient the natural environment will be for future generations. Informed, targeted action is a key component of education for a sustainable future.
Objectives:
• To promote environmental education amongst students and instil values, knowledge and skills, which lead to positive behavioural changes that support the school and the environment.
• To instil values of positive behaviour and sense of responsibility among all students in accordance with sound environmental practices.
• To encourage all students to actively participate in their schools’ environmental activities and promote their own initiatives.
• To educate students about environment and global environmental issues.
• To promote students’ attitudes towards greening their school through environmental initiatives.
• To encourage schools to invest time and effort in creative environmental initiatives.
Number and profile of participants:
We attempt to adopt a whole-school approach to climate action in our project. In this approach, students’ classroom learning about climate change is reinforced by the formal and informal messages promoted by the school’s values and actions. In other words, students and other members of the school community live what they learn, and learn what they live. It means that we include action for reducing climate change in every aspect of school life. This includes school governance, teaching content and methodology, campus and facilities management as well as cooperation with partners and the broader communities. We consider that the active involvement of all internal and external school stakeholders, namely students, teachers, principals, school staff at all levels and the wider school community such as families and community members in reflecting and acting on climate change is key to a successful implementation of the whole-school approach.
Although the number of students and teachers actively travelling and taking part in the mobilities will be of course much smaller due to the restrictions of the budget.
Description:
During our project we will adequately educate students about
– Reasons for climate change in general
– How has global climate change affected the countries of our project partners (Latvia, Portugal, France, Turkey and Germany)
– What has been done so far to mitigate it in the respective countries
– What individual action can be done to reduce emissions
In terms of the individual action we identified the following five ways of decreasing the carbon footprint as the most effective ones and the most related to the daily life of our students.
C1- Dec 20 DE Optimise your diet- Food waste & other ways of reducing carbon footprint
C2- Apr 21 FR Plastic- ain’t our-bag
C3- Oct 21 PT The buzz on e-waste: technology, waste, and the environment
C4- Jan 22 TR Shop smart- The fashion industry and climate change
C5- April 22 LV Ready, set, sow- gardening for climate change
Methodology:
Our approach is twofold: In a first step students will learn about factors that drive climate change and the vulnerability profile of their own country and their partners’ ones. They will also learn about key approaches and technologies, to adapt to the impacts of climate change and to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases
In a second step after identifying a focus issue and learning about the current situation in their green space it is important to enable students to follow through to act on their ideas, in order to make a real difference for our native plants and animals. Consequently, in every single topic mentioned above they will participate in hands-on activities.
Results and impact:
– 1 website
– 1 Facebook page
– 1 e-Twinning project space
– 1 set of initial and final questionnaires/tests
– 5 workshops during the learning, teaching and training activities (LTTAs)
– 3 e-books (Cook yourself green- a recipe book/ How to give up plastic: tips and advice for an eco-friendly household/ DIY- how to upcycle)
– 1 calendar (containing tips to a planet-friendly gardening)
– various charity events (bazaars, markets, repair events,…)
– 1 exhibition “Fashion & climate change”
– 100 certificates of attendance
– 100 Europass
Our project will help students understand and address the impact of global warming, increase “climate literacy” among young people, and encourage changes in their attitudes and behaviour.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 162592 Eur

Project Coordinator

Städtisches Werner von Siemens Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Profesionalas izglitibas kompetences centrs “Nacionala Makslu vidusskola”
• COLLEGE BEAUSEJOUR
• Izmit Ortaokulu
• Agrupamento de Escolas Augusto Cabrita