Outdoor Learning – Real Learning! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Outdoor Learning – Real Learning!

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 Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

The pedagogical approach of our project was outdoor education. All partners schools had problems with absenteeism, low attendance, lack of interest in school activities and learning. That is the reason we have chosen outdoor education, as studies have found that children who don’t necessarily thrive in a traditional classroom (including students with ADHD) are more engaged and successful when they’re learning in a curriculum-based, outdoor environment.
The objectives of our project were to lower absenteeism of students, which we managed to do by offering engaging outdoor activities, where students could connect their school experiences with the real life outdoor setting and feel secure and included.
There were 5 partners:
1. Liceul Tehnologic “Octavian Goga” Jibou has 650 pupils aged between 6 and 18 years and 60 teachers. It has primary, secondary and technical / vocational education. The school offers education in the minority language, Hungarian, to pupils, aged 6-14 and to the children who live in the child care centre next to our school. These students are abandoned or orphan children, or whose parents are gone abroad working for a better living.
2. The Comprehensive Institute Laura Lanza lies within one of the newest districts in Carini, a disadvataged area for social-economic aspects. The school has about 1200 students and 110 teachers.
3. The E.E.G. of Agios Dimitrios is a public, vocational lower secondary school for children with special educational needs in a northern suburb of Athens . Τhe duration of studies until graduation is 4 years. The school has 34 teachers, 3 psychologists, a social worker, two assistants and 180 students. Their learning disabilities arise from different causes such as borderline intelligence and/or mild mental retardation, Attention Deficit Disorder and Hyperactivity (ADHD), Autistic Spectrum Disorders and neurological problems.
4. ES Madina Mayurqa is a state secondary school that offers both compulsory and post-compulsory secondary education. It has around 700 students, aged between 12 and 18 years old. There are around 70 teachers working at the school. They have students with learning needs in all of the secondary groups, and around 10% of the students are immigrants from different parts of the world, but especially from Eastern Europe, North Africa, China and South America.
5. The Dr. Horácio Bento Gouveia School is located in the urban area of Funchal and started activity 30 years ago. The school was totally rebuilt 8 years ago and has over 200 teachers and 1600 students, 10 to 16 years old. They also have a special unit that works with handicapped children and students with special needs of all sorts.
During the 2-year-project, we had eTwinning activities on Twinspace, logo contest, dissemination events, online questionnaires, 3 Transnational Project Meetings, 3 Learning, Teaching, Training Activities and 8 outdoor lessons at: Geography, Science, Art, Maths, Literature, History, Foreign Language and Civics Education. All 40 outdoor lesson plans can be viewed on our Twinspace, website and Facebook page.
Our tangible final result is the book “Outdoor Learning – Real Learning!”, which contains all the 40 lesson plans of the outdoor activities that we implemented during the project.The project’s result have an open access, they are public and free.
The project’s results will remain available and be used by others on:
-public Twinspace pages: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/45380/pages/page/273273-
-public official Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/outdoorlearningerasmus/
-official website: https://outdoorlearningweb.wordpress.com/
-online book: https://issuu.com/nagymelinda/docs/final_outdoor_book-converted
We will continue to organize more outdoor lessons, probably on a smaller scale, lacking the funds, but with the same great educational purposes, interest and enthusiasm. These activities will continue to be published on the official Facebook page of the project and on the school Facebook page as we have done so far. We will implement our partners’ outdoor lessons, whenever it is possible.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 128630 Eur

Project Coordinator

Liceul Tehnologic “Octavian Goga” Jibou & Country: RO

Project Partners

• EIDIKO EPAGGELMATIKO GYMNASIO AGIOU DIMITRIOU
• Escola Dr. Horácio Bento de Gouveia
• Istituto Comprensivo Laura Lanza Baronessa di Carini
• IES MADINA MAYURQA