My Earth : Let’s act Everyone responsible indeed ! Erasmus Project

Project Title

My Earth : Let’s act Everyone responsible indeed !

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions

Project Summary

Our project is entitled “My earth: let’s all act, everyone’s responsible indeed ! “ has for acronym M’TATR in french which should be read “ Love your earth “ as its main purpose is to put and make work close together pupils from two European schools for two years ( the collège Jean Mermoz from Saint-Laurent de la Salanque in France and the IES Andreu Alfaro from Paiporta in Spain ) on the discovery and protection of their environment.
Staff from both schools have come to the same initial point: they do face difficulties teaching unmotivated pupils (underprivileged social background, unconcerned parents, an ever-increasing number of them facing learning disabilities Dyslexia, Dyspraxia ) who drop out as they no longer feel involved with classical teaching methods and struggle to overcome their shortcomings due to their lack of self-confidence.

In order to remotivate them and help them restore their taste for school, we have decided to set up a dynamic, innovative project in a different setting. So, considering the similar geographical situation of both schools, we will focus on the environment and protection of the sea-coast in France and Spaini with a common scientific curriculum. The pupils involved will be lucky enough to stay twice abroad, in the participant country and welcome their partners twice at home to experience an intensive linguistic immersion likely to strengthen their knowledge of foreign languages (pronunciation, vocabulary, language command).
During these exchanges, they will also (re)discover their own environment to better grasp it (local culture), unveil it to others (in-class exposés, press articles) and work out solutions to protect it (creation of bilingual leaflets and posters for example).
This project will also allow a wider mind-awakening by reinforcing the notions of tolerance and respect towards foreign citizens thanks to regular communicative patterns between all the participants from either side of the boundary, rich moments to be shared likely to engender genuine, durable friendships, common tasks in all kinds of activities (visits, new experiences). Self-involvement and the concept of “ living together “ stand at the very heart of our project so as to further develop mutual aid, listening and communication but also to promote environmental awareness to become sensible, European citizens.

The project will include 26 pupils and 6 staff from both schools (two educational teams) and will be the recurrent theme of their curriculum and subjects for two years. Participants will get involved on a voluntary basis and selected from grade 8 and 1 ESO classes according to their own motivation for a 24 months project and their desire to achieve, whatever their difficulties, either financial or educational.
Each school will be in charge of welcoming their partners and implementing their staying (programme, cost budget, board and accomodation, activities, tasks to be assessed) but it is up to the French establishment as project planner to take stock of the mid and final reports. Communication between educational teams and pupils will be carried out thanks to Etwinning 2 to make arrangements for the various meetings, exchange documents and further develop class-requirements (foreign languages, physics and natural science).

We are fully convinced that getting involved in this project, the interest raised by the exchanges (4 stays altogether), class-work and achieving concrete results will have a rapid, positive impact as it will mean a greater motivation and a real enthusiasm with numerous pupils who , as school ambassadors and environment activists, will make them proud and have a better self-image.
The desire for self-improvement will impact on their daily school-life. This project will have a positive influence far beyond the involved school-children as the whole school community will benefit from this breath of fresh air, discover and re-use activities performed in class, enrich educational patterns and restore some kind of local reputation for both underprivileged schools. It will seem natural, afterwards, to perpetuate this type of project in the long term by arranging soon new exchanges between the two schools with different pupils on similar or alternative themes so as to make the best of the twinning.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65864 Eur

Project Coordinator

Collège Jean MERMOZ & Country: FR

Project Partners

• IES ANDREU ALFARO