Let’s Walk and Learn – Education viaTourist Paths in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Let’s Walk and Learn – Education viaTourist Paths in Europe

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 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Natural sciences

Project Summary

While creating our project we proceeded from finding out that today’s youth mostly have a patchy knowledge of their environment, they do not realise enough its value, and neither do they understand the idea of sustainable development. Further we based our project on the fact that the youth have less outdoor activities and fewer opportunities to learn how to orientate themselves in the field. Important was also the realisation that among the most important skills required at the labour market there are communication skills, foreign languages, solving problems and team work. We also realised the necessity of cross-curricular teaching and long-life professional development of teachers.
Our goals:
-to make the youth more sensitive to their environment and its problems, to support their responsible and respectful behaviour
-to improve their lifestyle supporting their attitude to non-devastating outdoor activities, especially walking, and to improve their orientation skills
-to improve their skills: communication, foreign languages, team work, problem solving, interconnecting knowledge from various fields and applying them in real-life situations
-to broaden their cultural awareness
-to support professional development of teachers by exchanging experience with colleagues, discovering different schools, participating in workshops and lectures aimed at teaching methods
-to develop cross-curricular cooperation skills in teachers
All 3 partner organisations are upper-secondary schools finished by an external exam:
-Grammar school Rájec-Jestřebí, coordinator, small school (about 140 students) with a family atmosphere and students aged 13-19 from varied social background, offers general education with emphasis on languages and natural sciences
-Grammar school Tvrdošín, small school (about 200 students) offering general education with emphasis on languages and sports to students aged 13-19 from urban and rural social backgrounds
-French MFR Les Fins, different from the 2 previous ones, vocational boarding school where in-class teaching and professional training in companies alternate, founded by association of families and professionals, subordinate to Ministry of agriculture, is also a small school with about 130 students aged 14-18 from rural social background, some of them with learning difficulties. It offers 2 study programmes: Management of nature areas, Services to people.
We carried out these learning/teaching/training activities:
-3 short-term exchanges of pupils with an accompanying person in the length of 6 days, each school organised one; programme: in-field activities, discovery of natural life, work with maps and GPS, observation of tourist marking, work in groups of mixed nationalities, lectures and excursions, in-class participation, etc.
-5 short-term joint staff training events (2 in FR, 2 in CR, 1 in SK) aimed at students’ project work, realization of project outputs and dissemination activities (preparation, planning, monitoring…). Further activities included workshops, discussions with professionals, exchanges with colleagues, excursions aimed at professional development of teachers. 3 of them took place simultaneously with students’ meetings, 2 of them were independent. Those latter were 5 days long and aimed at launching and closing the project.
We also carried out continuous activities at each partner school independently during the whole project. Their results were shared in the e-learning environment. They included weather monitoring, observation of changes in the environment during the year, biological and geographical characteristics of the three regions, examination of tourist marking systems, description of tourist trails, proposals of new trails, GPS and map work, sustainable development etc.
Outputs of our project:
-tangible results, such as e-learning environment with all the materials created within the project, brochure comparing our three regions, brochure promoting hiking in our regions, four-language dictionary, video of the project, proposals of new tourist paths, proposals for improvements of the existing ones, collection of tourist maps)
-immaterial results, such as gained experience and skills of both students and teacher, broadening the cultural awareness, personal development
Impact of the project is mainly in professional and personal development of all participants, there is also an informational and motivational impact on both school communities and public, improvement of tourist paths and creating materials for the in-class use.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 92348,87 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnazium Rajec-Jestrebi, o. p. s. & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Gymnázium
• Maison Familiale Rurale Les 2 Vals