Food and Health; its better to prevent than to cure Erasmus Project

Project Title

Food and Health; its better to prevent than to cure

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Health and wellbeing; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

In a former project some of the participating schools of this new project “ Food and Health, it’s better to prevent than to cure” had already worked together. And we met other partners during contact seminars in the past. During these projects and seminars we found similar interests. One of them was talking about the unhealthy lifestyle a lot of our students have at school nowadays. We all noticed that the students eat more and more junkfood, take energydrinks and have a lack of physical excercise spending a lot of time at the computer, playing games and so on. Because we had the same concerns about the lifestyle of our youth we started the preparation of this project.
We didn’t only write for the reason of the healthy lifestyle, but also because we think that respect for other cultures is essential. In every day school life we noticed that is is often difficult to find ways to promote awareness of and respect for other cultures in a positive way. Partly because our schools are still more or less monocultural, partly because the environment is not as language and culture minded and partly because teachers lack motivation and skills. We experienced in the past that the best way to promote positive attitudes towards other cultures was to permit students to live in a host family in a different country and get to learn about the different cultures, lifestyles and livingstandards in each country.

During this project we had three major objectives:
1) Cultural diversity is not obvious in the regions of our schools. Regional habits are considered standard and this will cause problems in the future life of our students. They feel insecure in new situations. Positive experiences with other cultures help to overcome xenophobia. An international project is a means to have these contacts with a big positive impact on the school community as a whole but especially on the participants (students and adults). Students aged 14-16 will experience different lifestyles in host families and are asked to reflect upon the experience this will improve respect for other cultures. They also have a role in disseminating the experience (presentations for parents and peers) In this age of globalization and migration it is essential to be able to accept and respect other cultures. In every day school life this is difficult to promote in a positive way. Cultural diversity is rare in our schools and the environment /community around the school is not very language and culture minded. Virtual exchanges contribute as well but the impact is less prominent due to the lack of one to one interaction within the families. The virtual exchange will help to benefit to the most of the experiences of a real life exchange.
2) For our students English is first foreign language. A lot of our students have difficulties learning vocabulary and grammar rules. An international project forces the use the language in a natural setting, helps to improve motivation and finally improves not only students, but also participating teachers’ performances. Presentations orally and written in English to peers and other teachers were made regularly for dissemination of outcomes of activities. Sustainable contacts were made through different means: What’s App, Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook make it easier to stay in contact. These experiences helped students to gain self-awareness and surely were a learning motivator. English teachers measured a positive impact on the progress of the students. As for enhancing motivation for lifelong (language) learning the project also focused upon teachers. This project provided best practices from all schools for all teachers. Each school was challenged to present best practices to other schools during meetings. This stimulates reflection upon teaching habits. After an exchange best practices were shared orally within the team, put on digital platforms and were also integrated in the curriculum of the participating schools.
3) The schools did benefit not only from formal but also from informal learning by taking food into account. In our schools we experience that students often have unhealthy lifestyles. A report from LEI 2010-040 (December 2010) shows that eating habits from students with lower education are even worse. Older kids 11-15 snack more and skip more meals. In all our countries people tend to have less exercise and to overeat. More people have to face health problems. We did raise awareness of the effects of food habits and exercise for good health in our students (and their families) with the help of local and regional organizations which are specialised in the matter. As studies reveal good food habits and physical exercises are also important when it comes to mental performance. Statistics of the Dutch CBS (2009) show that students with unhealthy lifestyles have less chances to succeed in their school career. The study also shows that 15-20% of students from 15-24 are overweight, 42-60% are not active enough; 10

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 105535 Eur

Project Coordinator

Emelwerda College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• IES Astaroth
• Auces vidusskola
• Lüganuse Keskkool
• Hof skole