Between past and future: the legacy of the past Erasmus Project

Project Title

Between past and future: the legacy of the past

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; Gender equality / equal opportunities; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The core of the project was sustainable action as a reinterpretation of common European and regional rural traditions. As part of the project, about 100 students from the upper school worked in German-Italian tandems using the method “learning through teaching”. The pupils recognised how tradition can be “reinterpreted”. In the past, sustainable action has helped to ensure the survival of people who had to starve to death due to natural disasters. Queen Katharina von Württemberg, the founder of the Queen Katharina Stift recognised this and supported the people of Württemberg with her foresight (founding of the agricultural institute, Queen Katharina Stift, savings bank, Katharinenhospital). In the past decades, we have lost this foresight in civilised society. Thus we have almost destroyed our planet. It is now 5 to 12 and we must remember that sustainable action today is once again a necessity to save the planet, to establish distributive justice in the world and to protect the world.
The students first dealt theoretically with sustainability and learned what sustainability means from a historical point of view and how one can learn from historical customs, here especially in the field of architecture, and shape the future sustainably with this knowledge.
Both partner schools are connected to history and tradition in a special way due to their cultural and historical context. In the Year of European Cultural Heritage 2018, the above-mentioned topics were considered in a German-Italian or European context. The starting point of the project was the sustainable action of Queen Catherine, who reformed agriculture in a sustainable way. In the poverty-stricken kingdom of Württemberg, the queen faced a tough test: the people were suffering from the worst famine to date, caused by poor weather conditions and resulting crop failures. She realised that it does not help to distribute alms, but took sustainable measures to develop agriculture.
Agriculture has always played a major role in Puglia as well. In olive oil, grapes, cherries, almonds, artichokes and tomatoes and fishing, the region is one of the top producers in Europe.
Puglia attracts visitors with its unspoilt nature, ancient art treasures and traditional cuisine. Environmental awareness began in Puglia at the end of the 1980s, when some producers left conventional cultivation. Today, Puglia’s organic producers are also supported by consortia and associations, such as Libera dalle mafie, which returns lands confiscated by the mafia to the citizens. The students have realised that they can contribute to a peaceful world through their consumer behaviour. The project activities focused on Slow Food and Slow Città as a counter-pool to Fast Food and Fast Life, as Italy is the motherland of the Slow movement. The following activities took place:
Slow Food: visit to various organic agricultural enterprises (olive oil mill, Masseria didattica-Mozzarella production, flower cultivation, Apulia Kundi (seaweed start up). “Libera dalle Mafie”, deals with the valorisation and promotion of typical organic products on lands confiscated by the Mafia.
Slow Città: Visit to some of the towns that have been awarded the Slow Città label (Trani, Matera, Gravina) and to companies working in the eco-building sector. The criteria of ancient and modern sustainable building methods are being researched. Meetings were also held with citizens of these cities who volunteer in environmental protection and preservation of cultural heritage. The environmental department of Puglia was the first in Italy to pass a law promoting environmentally friendly public purchases. The project imparts interdisciplinary knowledge and skills and sees itself as a pedagogical response to globalisation processes. The question of the realisation of human rights, global justice and the conditions for a peaceful world played an important role. Sustainability concepts, e.g. waste separation, resulted at both schools.
In addition to the content-related goals, the pupils have greatly improved their language skills. At the end of the project, we created an app that will be made available to other interested schools as a suggestion for an eco-study trip. In order to create this app, the students had to acquire appropriate IT skills. In the work phases between the group visits, we worked on thematically appropriate texts in the foreign language using the methods of foreign language teaching and exchanged them in the tandem method.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 64524 Eur

Project Coordinator

Königin-Katharina-Stift & Country: DE

Project Partners

• liceo Scientifico Leonardo da Vinci