Be YOU – Be EU Erasmus Project

Project Title

Be YOU – Be EU

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: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Lately we have experienced a rise of anti-European thoughts/powers all over Europe. Right wing parties entered national parliaments, the UK decided on leaving the EU and the problems of dealing with refugees lead to a separation among the EU-states rather than to more cooperation or solidarity. Developments in social media and in the use of the internet make it difficult to distinguish between facts and “alternative facts” or “fake news”. Why do the ideas of parties that see their own country “first” seem to appeal more to young people than the idea of a united Europe? Or is it the problem that youngsters cannot make themselves heard?

Our students are the “European future” and because of that they have to understand that a united Europe is crucial for their well-being, their development and a peaceful life. Working in this project in international groups will ensure a mutual understanding of differences and similarities. They will learn that they are facing the same problems and obstacles. By observing every country’s solving strategies they will have the proper tools to find a more efficient European way to tackle today’s challenges.

In a digitalized world the student as an individual is challenged to decipher and decode everyday’s news. In order to do this it is necessary to equip him/her with the right techniques to understand information correctly. They must be aware of the strategies used by its sources to distinguish between “hard facts” and “fake news”. At the same time it is most important to understand that a development of personality and opinion is only sensible by confronting one’s own opinion and attitude with those of others and different cultural backgrounds. This peer evaluation and feedback is why we want students to work together in international groups and different international surroundings.

The Erasmus+ team in each school will select the most suitable candidates from the age group 15-18 years-old. The different schools involved in this project proceed in slightly different ways for the selection: the school in which the European project is part of the curriculum will pick whole class groups, while the others will take into account criteria like the students’ motivation, abilities and behaviour in order to make a selection.

To achieve our goals we are planning a project in which the students learn to decode “fake news”, work as a European network, learn to apply 21st century skills (e.g. media literacy) and raise their awareness of being a part of the European community. We want to bring them together to dispute “alternative facts” and produce a European online magazine in which they write articles, essays, blogs, etc. and describe how they revealed and exposed the truth behind “fake news”. The expected content of the written products should show how Europe could be if our shared European beliefs and values were disregarded and neglected. The content will tackle topics from different areas like e.g. “economy”, “politics”, “religion”, “art”, “music”, etc. in every single year of the project the students will deal with different topics in order to achieve a wide range of results.

The activities will be organized in the following way: Each exchange week has workshops, in which we have different activities leading up to our end product. They include teaching and dissemination activities. Details can be found in the Learning, Teaching, Training section.

Students will develop their knowledge by dealing with information from different sources (e.g. articles, blogs, comments) They will learn which different views on Europe exist. Students and teachers will improve their English skills, develop social skills and capacity for teamwork by working in international groups. Furthermore, students will increase their abilities in self-evaluation and peer evaluation. By researching for and producing the online-magazine they will improve their abilities to decipher information (“fake news”). Lastly, by coping with different sources of information students and teachers will form out a nuanced and self-conscious attitude towards the European future and its challenges. To make sure that this project has a longer lasting impact, our results will be spread to elementary schools. Pupils from these classes will “meet” Europe at a young age, through presentations/workshops led by the aforementioned ambassadors. The elementary school pupils will learn about the importance of European institutions in their daily lives. International calls/(data-)roaming, holidays, the euro and studying abroad are everyday-life examples.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 131475 Eur

Project Coordinator

OSG Gemini College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Erich-Fried-Gesamtschule Wuppertal
• Kauniaisten lukio / Kauniaisten kaupunki
• LICEO SCIENTIFICO “A.FORMIGGINI” SCIENTIFICO E CLASSICO