Active learning for a sustainable world Erasmus Project

Project Title

Active learning for a sustainable 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: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

Active learning for a sustainable world

Our 21st century world is changing at a breathtaking pace. There are many challenges we have to face as a global society and those challeges will become even more pressing in the world our students will inherit when they are adults. In the current situation, a world without change is a world without hope. This project is born as a proposal to contribute to bring about that change.

In order for our students become active citizens that make a positive impact society, they should be equipped with the necessary 21st century skills to be able to do so. Teaching in a way that facilitates the adquisition of those complex competences and properly evaluates them should be every teacher’s goal, but it is easier said than done. Teachers have to constantly reinvent themselves and innovate to adapt to the educational changes society demands in rapidly changing world.

A way to adapt to this changing scenario is to share best practises with other schools that have the same priorities and motivations. In this project we aim at:

• Reinforcing the development of key competences of students through the use of active learning methodologies in our classrooms. Special attention will be given to the development of proper evaluation tools that measure the adquisition of complex competences.

• Innovate, creating learning environments where students can carry out interdisciplinary projects that contribute to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the Agenda 2030. Our intention is also to encourage common values, civic engagement and participation among our students by asking them to change their local realities through the realization of those projects.

The project will be coordinated by the IES Josefina Aldecoa (Spain) with previous experience coordinating and participating in many Erasmus + and LLP projects. The other participants will be Pyhäjoen Lukio (Finland), Sct. Hans Skole (Denmark), Liceo Scientifico “Vitruvio” (Italy), 1o Peiramatiko Gymnasio Athinas (Greece) and Colégio Dom Diogo de Sousa (Portugal). All of them with different areas of expertise and orientations, but with a common drive to innovate, better their practises and offer their best to their students. Some participant schools already have experience in Erasmus + projects and all the participant schools want to develop an eTwinning project while we run this Ka2.

The project contemplates 6 activities and 3 will be carried out in each of the 2 years the project lasts for. The first year of the project will mainly contribute to meeting the SGD 3 (good health and wellbeing), with references to SGD13 (Climate action) and SGD2 (Zero Hunger). It will start with a project focused on changing the diet of a target group towards healthier and more sustainable principles. During the second mobility will put the lessons learned into practise on the whole Greek school and its local community. The last activity for first year will analyse the concept of student wellbeing and will produce proposals to improve it in every participant school. The methodologies used to carry out these project will be mainly influenced by Project Based Learning (PBL) although they will have to be adapted for every activity. There will be influences of other methodologies like the participatory action research (activity C.1) and discurse analysis and the study of successful as references for organisational school change (activity C.3).

The activities planned for the second year of the project will use a more STEM-based methodological approach and will have the SDG 12 (responsible production and consumption) as their running theme. The first two mobilities in this second year will have inputs from experts in the fields of robotics and chemistry analysis and antibiotics and will finish with a project based on the concept of upcycling, allowing for the participation of arts departments and turning the STEAM project into STEAM. Other methodologies will be used that will complement STEM, such as scenario based learning (SBL) (activity C.4), design thinking and service learning (activity C.6).

Evaluation will play a key role in this project. Every actitivity will be evaluated by the participants during the mobility and once this is finished through online surveys and online meetings. At the end of the project a more in depth evaluation will be carried out that deal with the degree of achievent of the objetives set at the beginning, global analysis of the lessons learned, academic results achieved by students when compared to control groups and the extent of adaptation of the methodological change advocated in this project by school teachers.

This project has the potential to bring about long lasting methodological and organisational changes to the schools involved that range from a widespreach methodological change amongst their teachers to change in the structure of classrooms or students timetables.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 196540 Eur

Project Coordinator

IES JOSEFINA ALDECOA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Colégio Dom Diogo de Sousa
• 1o Peiramatiko Gymnasio Athinas
• Sct. Hans Skole
• Pyhäjoen lukio
• Liceo Scientifico “Vitruvio”