Get involved! Our environment and us! Erasmus Project

Project Title

Get involved! Our environment and us!

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: Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; Environment and climate change; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The school partnership “Get involved! Our environment and us!” is intended to help give a voice to those who will be primarily affected by the effects of current environmental and climate policy: The children and young people. Nature and environmental protection and the fight against climate change begin at home, on our doorstep, at school and do not stop anywhere. It is a global challenge that can only be faced together. The four participating schools from Berlin and Vienna dedicate their efforts to one of the most urgent tasks for the future.: The preservation of our natural resources. Now, the worldwide school strike movement “Fridays for Future” raises questions about shaping the future, preserving nature and the environment and protecting the climate. As schools, we cannot and must not support a school strike, of course, but instead want to anchor this future topic more strongly and more sustainably as a component of education and upbringing work at schools.
In this school partnership, the pupils of the participating primary schools are sensitised to recognise a problem, to formulate their interests and to be allowed to work for it across their school, city and national borders.
The main aim of the project is to create a “children’s book for adults” about environmental protection and nature conservation with the pupils in a comprehensive, participatory process. Together with the teachers, the pupils will devote themselves to the subject of environmental protection and nature conservation: they will inform themselves, sensitise and activate themselves in the sense of well-founded, independent opinion-forming. In a participatory process (wishes, opinions and concerns of the pupils will be respected and integrated as far as possible) they will learn to experience and understand environmental contexts, to develop and represent their interests, to cooperate beyond school and neighbourhood boundaries and to communicate with decisionmakers.
This “children’s book for adults”, in which the pupils can articulate their observations, ideas, wishes or demands, will be the main result of this school partnership. At the end of the project, it will be handed over to representatives of the European Commission and the European Environment Agency. Further project results will be a portfolio accompanying the project to document one’s reflections, individual work and learning progress as well as a project presentation (Open House).
This project is supported by pupils aged 7-12 and teachers who specialise in natural and social sciences. When composing the project group of four schools from Berlin and Vienna, we made sure that a wide range of social and socio-cultural backgrounds was represented.
According to the age structure and the development status of the pupils, the project is predominantly carried out on an activity basis. Through specific impulses in the participating schools, e.g. on excursions, in small workshops, discussions with experts, a focus is placed on environmental problems. In this way, the pupils recognise the possibilities and limits of their actions. It is based on the existing competencies and knowledge acquired in class. Experiences from their neighbourhood are included and compared across schools and countries.
A total of 5 transnational learning activities are planned for the duration of the project. They are integrated into the ongoing project work. There are concrete work and learning assignments for each learning activity. In two short-term joint staff training for teachers, they will job-shadow at partner schools and work in joint workshops on the topics of participation and the development of a children’s book. During two short-term exchanges of groups of pupils, working groups will dedicate to the topics of participation and school climate, carry out environmental excursions, interview experts (environment, nature) and work in workshops for in-depth study and book design. On the concluding excursion to Brussels, a delegation of pupils will meet representatives of the European Commission and the European Environment Agency and present and hand over their “Children’s Book for Adults”.
The networking of the four schools and the combination of “experienced participation” and child-friendly processing of future questions will provide sustainable impulses for school development. As the main result of the project, the “Children’s Book for Adults” will have a broad impact far beyond the participating schools.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 75500 Eur

Project Coordinator

Grundschule an der Peckwisch & Country: DE

Project Partners

• GTVS-Vereinsgasse
• GTVS Novaragasse
• Grundschule im Hasengrund