Archipelago Erasmus Project

Project Title

Archipelago

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Our European project, Archipelago, is based on a current art/science collaboration, inspired by the European scientific experiment ANTARES KM3NeT, which already brought together two high schools in France, a theatre company, a visual artist and the Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille. Following the example of the European dimension of ANTARES KM3NeT’s scientific collaboration, which involves 51 laboratories in 15 European countries, we wanted to extend this project to a European partnership between high schools, during which the participating students had the opportunity to build their European citizenship. The contacts existing between schools and scientific laboratories have enabled us to establish a partnership project between two French high schools, a Spanish high school, a Turkish high school and a Greek high school.
Throughout Archipelago, the 25 high school students from these five establishments (5 x 5 pupils) worked on creating an artistic work, supervised by professional artists and renowned scientists, which made them aware of the value of collaborative work at the European level.
The learning process fostered the acquisition of new skills and competences and encouraged the high school students to produce quality artistic works for stage performances, which were to be presented on stage, filmed and then disseminated online and in open source. Archipelago also aimed to give high school students food for thought about the social, economic, ecological or political conditions of contemporary societies, in order to encourage the emergence of new models of thought and a new humanism in the future. The students were also able to develop their knowledge of languages and increase their communication skills through this intercultural programme which also used digital communication tools. The partnership, from South-East Europe to Western Europe, was an opportunity to develop several approaches to our European cultural heritage.
Through visits to research laboratories and science museums, the high school students collected stories of experiences and experiences of scientists from the exact and human sciences, and thus enriched their representations of the realities of the world. By visiting art museums, they were immersed in the movements of contemporary art which will also impact their representations of the world.
Parallel to these immersions, the high school students engaged in a process of realisation through an internal artistic practice within the establishments: dance, theatre, music, visual arts. Gradually, assisted by a Scottish author, Iain Finley Macleod, they then entered into a narrative construction, during which they met, during the first European gatherings, high school students from other “islands” with these questions: what are our differences, and what are our similarities? What separates us, and what unites us? Should we protect our “islands” or cooperate to build a new one together?
After contributing to the writing of the work, the high school students began rehearsals, which were unfortunately interrupted by the pandemic and successive confinements. The choice of a documentary film, made by a professional, was therefore favoured by several partner establishments, retracing the 18 months of the project’s existence, based on archive images, interviews and rehearsals filmed in the different high schools when the sanitary conditions allowed it.
However, the students were able to receive eighteen months of quality artistic training in their own schools. They were also in a “learning” situation during the European gatherings and the production of the final artistic form (the documentary film). The pedagogical methods used in Archipelago (the practice of transversality, breaking down barriers between disciplines, encouraging initiative) helped the students to develop their personal skills, build their confidence in the perspective of long-term university learning and aim for excellence. The project also helped to make careers in science and/or the arts attractive so that these high school students will be key players in the major challenges of European development in the future.
Participation in the project has contributed in different ways to the development of the schools involved: cultural and European openness has been boosted; artistic and scientific partnerships have been developed. The project also made it possible to develop exchanges of good practice between teachers from different countries: an openness to enrich teaching attitudes. The communication carried out on the site shared by the 5 high schools will make it possible to promote the results of the Archipelago process for many years to come.

Project Website

http://archipelago-erasmus.eu

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103339 Eur

Project Coordinator

Ecole Ozanam & Country: FR

Project Partners

• LYCEE POLYVALENT BEAUSSIER
• St Catherine’s British School
• Özel Samsun TAKEV Anadolu Lisesi
• Lycée Français de Valence