EU 4 U – Electing, living and working as a young person in today’s Europe and in the future Erasmus Project

Project Title

EU 4 U – Electing, living and working as a young person in today’s Europe and in the future

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Pedagogy and didactics; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

According to the European report “Generation What?”, Europe is not a matter very close to their hearts for most young people. In addition to that, Europe is facing a lot of problems at the moment, just to mention the Brexit. From our experience as teachers we can say that hardly any of our students can tell us how the European elections are carried out or how to apply for a job in Europe. This is what we want to change with our project. We want to teach our students about the EU and provide an e-book with teaching materials for other schools in the world regarding the following topics: EU politics and elections, living in the EU, working in the EU as well as the future of the EU.
The objectives of our project are, on the one hand, to make our students understand how Europe works in theory. On the other hand, we want to make Europe practical for our students by working with students from different directions of Europe – the South (Greece), the East (Poland and Romania) and the West (Germany). Furthermore, we want to improve their methodological and digital competence by using tools and software like Excel or design software they often do not know well.
Concerning the number and profile of participants, it can be said that for every mobility meeting there will be five students from each country visiting the host school adding up to 15 students (between 14-18 years old). Additionally, all the students from the same age group within the host schools (between 50 and 150) will attend project-related events. Even more students will be involved in U18-elections. Furthermore, we will invite parents, for example to a farewell party. Every country will have an Erasmus+-team consisting of at least two coordinators and three more teachers.
To describe the activities and methodology involved, it can be said that the focus of the first meeting is the creation of advertisements for the EU as well as an U18-election. During the second meeting there will be an informative afternoon relating to living in Europe. The main goal of the third meeting is to create a website with information of how to apply for a job in the four countries involved. During the fourth meeting we want to discuss the future of Europe with the help of a scenario. All the activities mentioned will be accompanied by experts’ talks. However, we do not only want to provide students all over the world with pure knowledge but we also want to make them familiar with cooperative learning methods they can use later to gather their own information and to make qualified decisions as an EU citizen. We will use some better known forms like jigsaw puzzle but also some less known forms like Six Thinking Hats or the Scenario technique to introduce different methods. We need the meetings in the four different countries to try out and improve our teaching materials. All the results will be put into lesson plans including material other schools can use later on.
The main result of the project is an e-book with lesson plans including the produced material (e.g. texts, videos) and cooperative learning methods used (e.g. Six Thinking Hats) about the EU politics and elections, living in the four countries involved (e.g. education), working in Europe by the example of the four countries involved (e.g. qualifications for jobs) as well as future scenarios of the EU. This can be used for subjects like Social Sciences, Politics, Geography, Religious Education, European Clubs or cover lessons at every school in the world.
The International Commission on Education for the 21st century mentions the following key objectives in their report: learning to learn, learning to be, learning to do and learning to live together. This is what we would like to achieve with our project as a long-term result.
We expect longer term benefits on different levels:
1. Regarding the participating students and teachers
The chosen cooperative learning methods will help us to improve social competences like critical thinking and problem-solving, flexibility and adaptability, initiative, accessing and analysing information as well as curiosity and imagination, which are important for careers, further education (e.g. university) and citizenship. Moreover, the students will gain a lot of knowledge about the EU (politics, benefits, drawbacks, etc.), will be able to use ICT tools, for example design software, will be able to act as responsible citizen on a local, national and international level and will improve their communication skills in English.
2. Regarding participating schools all over the world
Teachers from all over the world can use the material and lesson plans, which will be uploaded on microsoft education and our website, to talk about Europe. They can contact the project partners to ask questions or use skype to allow students to meet online. We hope to make new contacts with schools from other countries and, therefore, make the topic of Europe more popular.

Project Website

https://projecteu4u.eu/wp/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 28911 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnasium Brede & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Sifnos high school
• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Leona Kruczkowskiego
• LICEUL TEORETIC ,,LASCAR ROSETTI,, RADUCANENI