Sustainable Living – Active Citizens Erasmus Project

Project Title

Sustainable Living – Active Citizens

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The main motivation for the project is without doubt the possibility of meeting and getting to know students and teachers from other countries in Europe. Intercultural competence is more important than ever. We need to break down cultural barriers and build awareness of cultural norms, to create people who have a tolerance for ambiguity and who can keep an open mind. But in order to have a project funded you also need a great project idea – and this we think we have found – sustainable living. The common core subjects in the LK06 Norwegian national curriculum will by 2020 be equipped with new core elements, and one of these will be sustainability. Sustainability can only be achieved through a collaboration between countries – it can never be seen as something isolated or something relevant for only one country.

The objectives we would like to achieve and the concrete results we would like to produce can be summarized in the title of the project: “Sustainable Living – Active Citizens”. We would like the participants of the project to get knowledge of what sustainability is and in that way be able to live more sustainable lives, and we want them to get knowledge of what it entails to be an active citizen and by that become active citizens in their local communities. By looking at what you can do in your local environment to achieve sustainability, we hope the participants will be capable of making informed decisions that can help change the way they live their lives.

Altogether, we are six partners, including Norway. These are Adam-Josef-Cüppers-Berufskolleg from Germany, Secondary Municipal School Taki Daskalo Bitola from Macedonia, OGEC Ensemble scolaire JEANNE D’ARC + SAINT JOSEPH from France, Muhoksen lukio from Finland, IISS Francesco De Sanctis Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi from Italy and Trysil videregaaende skole from Norway. A needs analysis helped us form this partnership consisting of countries which, on some level, had already implemented sustainability in their curricula, were in the process of implementing it, or who in other ways had integrated sustainability in their teaching or would like to do so. They all give different reasons for why being part of an Erasmus+ project like this is important. Both in France, Finland, Macedonia and Germany the topic of sustainability is already a part of the lessons, but what they need is to exchange ideas and help their students put into practice what are being taught in school. In Italy sustainability is not part of the national curriculum, nevertheless sustainable living has been put on the agenda by increased pollution levels, and they therefore see the need for their students to see what goes on in other countries, be influenced by this, and get the motivation to change things at home. In Norway sustainability will soon be part of the curriculum, but already it is a much used concept in many companies and institutions – the challenge is to convice the general public to make sustainability friendly choices.

We have included a wide range of activities in the project. Before each LTT activity we have planned collaborative online activities where the students first do some sort of research in the homes or local communities before they compare results with partners from the other schools online. During the LTT activities we mainly focus on getting a grasp of what sustainability is, by looking into the different pillars it is made up of: Sustainability and Environmental Development’, ‘Sustainability and Social Development’, Sustainability and Cultural Development’ and ‘Sustainability and Economic Development’. After each LTT activity we focus on evaluation and dissemination.

What we hope to achieve is awareness of what sustainability is and what you as an individual can do to contribute to making your local community more sustainable.

Sustainability is not just something you should read about – you should be able to live it.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88151 Eur

Project Coordinator

Trysil videregaaende skole & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Adam-Josef-Cüppers-Berufskolleg
• Secondary Municipal School Taki Daskalo Bitola
• OGEC Ensemble scolaire JEANNE D’ARC + SAINT JOSEPH
• IISS Francesco De Sanctis Sant’Angelo dei Lombardi
• Muhoksen lukio