Reduce our own footprint seeding local vegetables Erasmus Project

Project Title

Reduce our own footprint seeding local vegetables

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: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Cooperation between educational institutions and business

Project Summary

The footprint is the result of everything it takes to get your food from the farm to your plate. Many of those processes are invisible to consumers and they take a tremendous toll on our soil, air and water, as well as on the workers and the surrounding communities. Modifying our students’ and communities footprints will provide all new tools to be more self-sufficient and to face future challenges. This project has been undertaken by a group of 4 schools from 4 European countries: Spain (coordinator), France, Italy and Latvia. They share different experiences in the various fields of teaching and learning peer work, and also a will to develop these skills. This association of schools is the result of a careful process: the coordinator published a proposal on the eTwinning forum that was answered by a lot of schools. 3 of these schools were selected by applying certain criteria to make sure the final group would be cohesive, efficient and well-balanced. Their experience in European projects have been taken into account. The topics of the project have been valued in different fields, such as employability, education and globalization. The social inclusion was the first topic in our mind as growing vegetables in our gardens allow a better relationship between teachers and students. Also, our mentoring program including families in risk of social exclusion will disseminate better our project into communities. So, the beneficiaries of the project are students, schools, teachers, families, stakeholders and the areas where our students will implement the acquired knowledge. What’s more, there will be students with special needs, who thanks to the project, will reach their full potential and will have the opportunity to improve some skills. We established 5 scopes of action to work on: growing local seeds, building a greenhouse, mentoring program, creating datasheets and getting our own local seeds. We’ll reach these objectives through a certain number of activities, as well as particular modes of management and assessment. Nearly all activities have a 1st phase in each school -coordinated on eTwinning- and a 2nd one, internationalized, to be done in the 4 short-term student exchanges, one in each school. We want the maximum number of students to benefit from these international contexts. In each exchange, there’ll be activities that will be the culmination and summary of those done in the previous months in each school. There’ll also be time to get to know the place (city, region…) and a time for teachers to track and manage the project. At the beginning of the project, we’ll do a short-term joint staff training event devoted to peer learning on the main topics. The combination of the experience of these schools with these topics and their desire to improve leads us to conclude that only by sharing our knowledge and participating in common training we can truly be part of in the project and understand what and how we want to teach our students.
We have elements to ensure sound functioning of the project. The coordinator school has successfully organised other European projects, and the other schools have repeatedly shown their proactivity and skills for team-work when working on the project. Tracking the project will be done in thematic work groups integrated by teachers from all schools. Furthermore, assertivity, a working environment, capacity for constructive debate and efficiency displayed when preparing the project all allow us to believe that these factors will combine to establish our prevailing mode of operation. However, a certain number of operating rules were set up to support this good work.
Assessment to correct any issues will be done at different times on an ongoing basis, but especially at the end of each semester and at the end of the project. A survey to assess the state of learning among the students will be passed out at the beginning and at the end of the project to assess their evolution.
The short-term students’ exchanges will have their own assessment. Also, all students of our schools, families, teachers and stakeholders will undergo an assessment process. However, some objectives won’t be assessed within the project deadline. We expect the lasting effects of the project to be visible for many years thanks to the consistency which its structures can bring about. In the succeeding years we’ll evaluate the effects that we hope will have endured over
time.
We’ll disseminate the project by different means. ETwinning and TwinSpace will be the main platforms for communication and collection of all the material and tasks that we’ll do. We’ll create a project blog/webpage. Diffusion will also be done through local press, social networks, and the normal channels used by education professionals (symposia, papers, meetings…) in each country.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 128278 Eur

Project Coordinator

Institut Escola Sant Jordi & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Collège Jean Rostand. Draguignan
• ISTITUTO D’ISTRUZIONE SECONDARIA SUPERIORE STATALE “LUIGI CALAMATTA”
• EDGARA KAULINA LIELVARDES VIDUSSKOLA