SilHaRZ vision: from local hiking trails (of Sila and Harz) to meeting sustainable goals in Europe and the greater world Erasmus Project

Project Title

SilHaRZ vision: from local hiking trails (of Sila and Harz) to meeting sustainable goals in Europe and the greater world

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

“SilHaRZ vision: from local hiking trails (of Sila and Harz) to meeting sustainable goals in Europe and the greater world”: this is the title of a 2-year school partnership between the Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Giovanna de Nobili in Catanzaro (Calabria) and the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium Herzberg as a member of the “European School in Lower Saxony” and “Environmental School in Europe” networks. It is our vision to expand our very well- functioning exchange program between Italian and German students from a purely linguistic focus to a more global approach to foreign language teaching that also includes education on sustainable development, making both schools profit from the results of our work on a larger scale.

In this context, we also want to take innovative paths in the training and continuing education of teachers together with our partners. In the context of a long-term mobility (10 months), a teacher of German at our Italian partner school would like to support a future Italian teacher of the EMA- Gymnasium who meanwhile completes the necessary requirements to teach Italian professionally. The Italian teacher would like to learn from the competences of the young colleague regarding teaching methods. In team-teaching, they will plan and teach together Italian lessons at the EMA-Gymnasium and develop and apply innovative teaching, learning and assessment methods. Competence orientation, cooperative forms of learning, the integration of digital media, project learning, interdisciplinary teaching, etc. shall be the guiding principles here. The results of this project will be lesson plans, teaching materials (worksheets, presentations, games, methods, etc.) and class tests, which will be collected and made available to other teachers via eTwinning.
With this new dimension of our cooperation we intend to increase the motivation of Italian learners and at the same time promote the “profile subject” Italian at the EMA-Gymnasium, in accordance with our intention to develop the linguistic diversity at our European School systematically. Similarly, German lessons in Italy shall benefit from this cooperation, as the teaching ideas developed during the AUL can be directly applied in German lessons at I.I.S. G. de Nobili. A continuously growing collection of teaching ideas will not only benefit the Italian and German classes, but in the long run also the foreign language classes at our partner schools in general. The project shall contribute to the preservation of the cultural asset “language” and certainly also demonstrate the attractiveness of the teaching profession in the sector of modern foreign languages.

The second focus of the project is the promotion of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at both schools. It is addressed to pupils of the 11th (Germany) or 12th (Italy) grade. Each group will participate for one year. The focus results from the increasingly urgent question of common European and international solutions to global problems and challenges. In order to take a small step in this direction, we would like to continue the projects of our “Environmental School in Europe” and further develop the ESD profile of both schools in the context of our sustainability profile, biology, politics, economy and geography. According to the Orientation Framework for Global Education, all areas of competence are covered, from recognition to assessment and action. Therefore, through the project work, students will gain knowledge on the topics of “sustainable economy” (regional production, sustainable products, product cycles, recycling and waste disposal) and “water” (cleanliness of water and water supply) , which will be deepened and evaluated against the background of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The resulting action includes, among other things, removing rubbish from beaches, maintaining a section of the Karst hiking trail and actively advocating resource-saving behaviour. In the sense of personal development, student participation is particularly important to us.
The content of the project work is organised circularly. It begins in 2020 with the theme of sustainable and regional economy and leads through initiatives that are intended to encourage schools to take an in-depth look at sustainable consumption to the subject of “Recycling and waste disposal and avoidance” in the second project year.

Especially the 2- week mobilities on regional hiking trails in Italy and Germany will motivate the young people to act responsibly and sustainably – in the sense of our common future in Europe and the world.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 63231 Eur

Project Coordinator

Europaschule Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• I.I.S. G. DE NOBILI CATANZARO