Sense your City, Taste its Sights Erasmus Project

Project Title

Sense your City, Taste its Sights

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: Creativity and culture; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

The main goal of the project “Sense your city, Taste its Sights” is to promote the cultural heritage of four European cities: Agios Nikolaos (Greece), Barcelos (Portugal), Gdynia (Poland) and Tarragona (Spain) through the five senses giving students, who are hundreds of kilometres apart from each other, the chance to know each other, share their traditions and points of view, exchange and appreciate their heritage while fostering a sense of belonging to a common European space. The inclusion of students with social and educational difficulties, the prevention of early school leaving, the improvement of students’ communicative ICT skills, the rise in interest for foreign language learning and the development of lifelong key competences such as autonomy, curiosity and creativity have also been one of our main concerns throughout the whole project, playing a predominant role in the accomplishment of all the tasks proposed.
Participants have had the opportunity to value and widen their knowledge about their home cities and learnt what to see, hear, smell, taste and touch in four other European cities. Seeing totally different landscapes, archaeological sites and traditions; hearing the waves that lap the four shores, its musical instruments and such different languages; smelling and tasting its most representative dishes and touching the essence of its history have become the main targets of this project. The observation and discovery of all these aspects have made possible the accomplishment of different types of tasks carried out before, during and after each short-term exchange; and also the long-term tasks which have been completed throughout the whole project. The cooperation among the four schools has resulted in tangible materials such as: “The Recipe Book” which includes the most representative starters, main courses and desserts of the four culinary traditions. “The Multilingual Travel Glossary” which gathers basic and useful expressions in the languages of the participant countries (Catalan, Greek, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish), four “Glossary in Progress” language video tutorials”, each one in a different language to practice pronunciation and intonation, and “The Multilingual Video” where students communicate in the languages above mentioned. The four “Tutorials on Traditional Dances”, where each participant school shows and teaches the others how to perform them before the international dancing event. Four “Sing-along videos” which show the song “Ode to the Joy” in each national language for students to familiarize with the lyrics before the “Singing event” where the choir, consisting of all partner students, was another symbol of cooperation and unity. The four presentations of “Our City and the Sea” have brought closer our differences but also similarities and the travel brochures “Sense Agios Nikolaos, Barcelos, Gdynia and Tarragona” have awakened the desire to discover a city from a different point of view, the human senses.
Moreover, the completion of all these short and long-term tasks has led to the creation of “The Board Game: Sense your Cities” “which is a round-up of what all participants have learnt during the project’s lifetime. Through senses and surprise cards, students move around a board remembering what they have experienced and sharing the cultural heritage of four European cities.
To evaluate the right implementation of the different stages of the project, regular assessment has been carried out. Online questionnaires, charts, personal interviews, performance observation, and final output have been the means used to guarantee the accomplishment of all our main objectives.
The participants in the project were 122 pupils aged between 13-15 who represented the working teams from each school, 24 of whom took part in each face-to-face short-term exchange. These international learning experiences have helped to develop an intercultural awareness, making possible the participation of other students and teachers who were not directly involved in the project, but they also collaborated in the activities organized at each school as part of the process. The four school communities have benefited from the materials produced, which are available online and at the schools to be used at any time. Teachers have swapped good practices and applied those significant to their teaching contexts. Furthermore, teachers have widened their professional network, thus facilitating future cooperation within Europe and the internationalization of the schools.
The implementation of this project has also made possible that from now onwards, students, teachers and families are more willing to take part in further international projects. Participants have developed key competences for lifelong learning since all tasks carried out have favoured research, cooperation and autonomy.

Project Website

https://senseyourcity2018.blogspot.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 99325 Eur

Project Coordinator

Instituto de Educación Secundaria Torreforta & Country: ES

Project Partners

• 1st Gymnasio Agios Nikolaos
• AGRUPAMENTO DE ESCOLAS DE BARCELOS
• Amerykanska Szkola Podstawowa z Wykladowym Jezykiem Angielskim