No more walls, just bridges Erasmus Project

Project Title

No more walls, just bridges

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: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The project “NO MORE WALLS, JUST BRIDGES” comes from the meeting of five schools which have in common the same problems and face every day the same difficulties to find new motivating strategies for their students that are mostly at risk of school abandon. Their main problems of our students are: personal factors, social context, loneliness, exclusion, economic difficulties. With this project we wanted to give them the opportunity to be ready for the European job market or to continue their education in Europe.
The main goals were: inclusion of disadvantaged students, increasing of motivation through the introduction of new digital techniques, preventing discrimination and school abandon, developing the awareness of diversity as resource, acquisition / improvement of linguisticl skills, promoting different cultures inside the European Union, promoting the developing of the territory, improving the training offer of the involved school.
The five European countries involved gave their contribution in relation to its specificity and skills:
– IISS “Majorana” hosted the first mobility and the participants were involved in workshops and various cultural and entertainment activities. After a welcome ceremony the partecipants introduced their schools and towns and chose the logo of the project among the ones previously designed by the students. The theme of the week was the relationship between food and health, safe food handling and preparation practices and the understanding of food production from farm to table.Students took part in art labs on food, visited the Petruzzelli theatre, the Swebian Castle and the old town of Bari. They went on day trips to the Castellana Caves, Alberobello and Matera. They also visited a didactic farm where they learnt how to produce organic olive oil. The Majorana organized a school ball, dinners in typical restaurants, an exciting afternoon in the local“escape room” to entertain their guests. The week ended with a cooking show during which the partecipants prepared traditional dishes under the supervision of Majorana chefs.
– The second mobility took place in Romania The students visited the characteristic buildings of the city of Satu Mare and had a city treasure hunt; had guided tours at the Memorial of the Victims of Communism in Sighetu Marmației, the ancient monastery of Barsana, the Village-museum of Negresti Oas, the castle of Carei in Transylvania and the cheerful cemetery at Sapanta. The Romanian organized for both students and teachers a series of activities and sports competitions in athletics, football, fencing, kayaking, handball, table tennis and basketball, with teams mixed by gender and nationality. Workshops were run in cooking, mechanics, sewing, crafts and electronics both at the school and at some cultural and professional centers in the city. A series of folkloric and musical initiatives have animated, with dances and ballets of their own tradition, the moments of socialization.
– The third mobility took place in Paris where the French students have been tutors in visiting museums and characteristic buildings in Paris, also organizing a treasure hunt in the district of Pigalle. The participants visited the Louvre, the “Eiffel Tower”, “Basilica of the Sacred Heart” in Montmartre, walked on the “Champes Elisee” to the Arc de Triomphe and went to the “City of Science” with a visit to the Planetarium. The mobility was focused on the production of a TV news in which all the partners made interviews and videos on how the project is managed in each school and with the planting of the “Tree of Friendship” in the school yard.
– The mobility week in Campo Maior, Portugal was focused on the arising of awareness on environmental issues. It was also a glimpse into the beauty of nature and into solutions to preserve it. The activities consisted of: taking pictures in nature, studying the region’s bird habitat by bird watching activities with the help of two experts, a biology teacher and a National Geographic. From observation to practice, the students learnt how to camouflage shelters for bird watching, how to build bird shelters and how to cultivate and grow in a garden. They even wrote a message in a letter to the world about the way we all should protect our environment as wisely and as consciously as possible. The activities also pivoted on the use of the resources that nature provides us. The students learnt how honey, olive oil, plum products , and wine are produced and got familiar with the cork tree, a very expensive tree that is exploited to produce cork materials but in a safe way and with care in order to avoid damaging it. Growing animals in a clean environment for meat production was another subject of debate and the students could visit a huge farmland to see everything with their own eyes. Healthy food from healthy nature resources from a clean environment was another aspects of the meeting in Campo. Students participated in paper flower workshops and learning how to fold them now are the messengers of a precious Portuguese tradition. The participants visited the city of Elvas and the Fortress of Graca.
– The final virtual mobility started with some Ice breaking activities such as a kahoot about art played by the students. The questions were taken from the art paddlet created by all the partners.
Afterwards, the students represented famous artworks by artists from each country using photos, videos and presentation. Some of them created copies of the artworks, others reinterpretated them. Sometimes the choice reflected how digital technology and COVID have changed the perception of some values universally shared. These materials were prepared before the virtual mobility.
The partners introduced and promoted the monumentes they adopted: Bari chose Masseria Caggiano, a farm which is located in a strategic position along the Lama Balice Regional Park close to the school; Geel presented the Gasthuisfarm, a monument close to their school which needs a new, different function; Montmorency presented the Collegiale Saint Martin; Satu Mare The Jewish Synagogue and Campo Major their Castle. The students’ works were enriched with presentations by experts on the subjects.
The partners worked on examples of immaterial heritage of their countries. Bari organised an online cooking show during which students of the cooking classes prepared dishes using ancient and traditional ingredients to be found in the Lama Balice; the Belgians presented their typical Belgian fries. They also presented songs and ceremonies of Belgian traditional celebrations such as auspicious rites of the beginning of the year; Montmorency run an online tutorial about “African hairdressing techniques in the Paris region”; Satu Mare presented handmade symbols of March – Martisor and Campo Maior run an arts and craft lab on how to make Portuguese traditional paper flower.

The methodology used in carrying out the project were:
Learning by doing
Peer to peer
Cooperative learning
Flipped groups
Byod
Problem posing and solving
Gamification (Scratch)

Project Website

http://www.lyc-turgot-montmorency-erasmus.ac-versailles.fr/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 145817,55 Eur

Project Coordinator

IP “Ettore Majorana” Bari & Country: IT

Project Partners

• Liceul cu Program Sportiv
• Agrupamento Escolas de Campo Maior
• KOGEKA 6
• Lycée Professionnel Turgot