Forests, water and energy – our interrelated trio of sustainable living Erasmus Project

Project Title

Forests, water and energy – our interrelated trio of sustainable living

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Natural sciences; Pedagogy and didactics; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation

Project Summary

Context /background of the project:
Our Erasmus + project “Forests, water and energy – our interrelated trio of sustainable living” is a collaboration project with objectives related to science and sustainable development, multidisciplinary approach, student-centered approach with peer learning, and global education. Furthermore, one of the aims of the project is to help and include students who have difficulties in learning scientific subjects, either due to learning difficulties or language difficulties (migrant students). Since the participation is open to all students in grades 7-9, the project seeks to prevent exclusion and to promote equality.

The participating schools are from three countries: Kirkkoharju School from Finland, Theodor-Heuss-Schule from Germany and Talinn Laagna Gumnaasium from Estonia.

Objectives/results/impact:
Several aims were achieved in this project: students learned to regard sciences no longer as isolated academic subjects. Through the different activities carried out on the project, they learned that there is usually a combination of them that is very important in everyday life and influences us in many ways. Especially by peer learning and by getting an insight into sciences used in industrial practice students who were not very interested in sciences before began to consider them as helpful tools in modern societies and lost their reserved attitude towards them.

Another important goal refers to the topics of investigation: Forests influence our climate and are an important economic factor and together with water and energy this trio is indispensable for modern societies. And since all three are limited, it will become obvious that sustainability in their consumption and use is of prime importance.
Each meeting focused on one of these specific topics and to prepare the meeting the students worked for several months. They concentrated on the use and provision of forest, water and energy in their own countries, chose the main aspects, presented and discussed them in exchange with their foreign partners at the meetings.

The students learned and understand that the countries in the EU all need and use forests, water and energy, but that they all have their different ways of providing them and dealing with them, but are united again in their common aim of sustainability and preserving forests, water and energy for future generations. As a further results, students have started an initiative to find out what the school and the students can do to be more ecological. In the future, the partners will establish a theme day at their schools which will focus on sustainability and they will exchange their ideas with their partners.

Another important result is that students were able to improve their knowledge and communication skills in English. Even those, who felt inhibited at the beginning, lost their reserved attitude and were able to communicate to partner students and host families. in addition to that, another important objective and visible result is increase of cultural competence of pupils and teachers. Living and working together for some time promotes mutual understanding, overcoming national borders and strengthening the idea of a united Europe.

Participants:
In each mobility there were 8 pupils and 3 teachers. The teachers immediately involved in the project were Science, English and preparatory class teachers due to the topic, experience and motivation. Students were chosen from year 7-9 based on their interest in science, taking part in international projects and their willingness to do extra work for the period of time.

Description of undertaken activities:
Presentations and workshops by and for the students on energy production, forestry and forest industry as well as recreational use, the use and protection of water resources. , Excursions to a nature park, manufacturers and local companies, museums, power stations, Energy center, reservoirs and outdoor learning as well as forest meals enabled the pupils to find out about forestry, water usage and energy production in Finland, Germany and Estonia.

Longer term benefits:
Teachers and pupils have created personal contacts with their partners and they want to continue mutual exchange and relationships with the help of the media and future meetings. The pupils have gained multicultural and multilingual competences, experience in peer learning and teaching science subjects which gives them advantage in their further studies and even at the job market in longer term perspective. Particularly the pupils have become more open minded and consider international options in their future career.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 59682 Eur

Project Coordinator

Kirkkoharjun koulu & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Theodor-Heuss Schule
• Tallinna Laagna Gümnaasium