Food – I Am What I Eat Erasmus Project

Project Title

Food – I Am What I Eat

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Health and wellbeing; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

Three European schools joint together to this two-year-project to study nutrition and its impact on the youth’s health. Our joint team consisted of three comphrehensive schools from Gdansk, Poland, Lübeck, Germany and Kotka, Finland. Our pupils were 13-16 years old. The Polish XV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Zjednoczonej Europy Gdansk, is constantly seeking new teaching methods, solutions and pedagogical approaches.Therefore they are running extended programme classes developing the following subjects: Modern languages (English, German, Spanish), Maths, Physics, IT, Biology, Economics, Social Studies and Art classes. In 2013, they started a Spanish bilingual class. Therefore, they have a wish to specialize in CLIL method.The school has been evaluated by Polish Ministry of Education (Evaluation System of Education). The report proved that the school is a constantly improving organisation, setting high standards of education and achieving very good national exam results. The Ernestinenschule in Lübeck has a solid base for cooperation with schools from various European countries, and is a certified “Europaschule”. The main interest of this school within the project was on the one hand the concern of some ot their pupils with eating disorders and on the other, to widen up the colabouration with the Lubeckian companies and the program “FoodRegio” and to introduce the project schools to them. Furthermore, Lübeck and Kotka are twin towns, therefore the project was a fine possibility to bundle these two towns into an tighter friendship and cooperation. This was the thought in the Finnish school, Karhulan koulu (town of Kotka), too. The school has never participated a project similar to this (Comenius, Erasmus) but we were now very eager to broaden our international relations and knowledge on the habits and practizes in the parter schools with the project. Since the new Finnish Curriculum (2016) underlines the importance of learning activities (experience and doing by yourself), this project was seen as a benefit for the school. The school’s strengths for the project were excisting Home Economics lessons and cooking class rooms in the school’s premises and free school lunches.
Our project was originated by the town twinning of Kotka (Finland) and Lübeck (Germany). From there came the suggestion for a cooperation. All three schools eagerly took the challenge. The two of us visited the Polish school, to brainstorm the main points of interest for the project. The students have presented and worked out the knowledge on food pyramid, additives, ingredients, diseases, disorders with help of and working together with outside institutions such as universities, food factories, food farms (workshops, mini – lectures). Students acted out computer based role plays, filled in and worked on on-line questionnaires. Computer based portfolio, the Finnish Peda.net.fi, was used to record students’ achievements and it passed information after students’ exchanges to other students in their own schools. Starting from individual, student-centered approaches to global aspects connected with the food theme we fostered critical thinking to global approach. We also addressed cultural and environmental context by pointing out cultural diversity and its influence on different eating habits – vegan, vegetarian, kosher diets and highlighted the global and ecological aspect of bio-production and the connection between production, cargo and consumption (fair trade, food miles). The project had an inter-disciplinary character, as it involved different subjects like science, economy, religion, art, foreign languages (English, German). The partner schools organized some multilingual activities prior to every students’ exchange to acquire specific terminology, e.g. instructions for cooking, food ingredients, food production and technology. The pupils studied all fields of nutrition and its impact on the health, also to diminish harmful and counterproductive eating habits, which can be very common in the targeted age group (13-15 years). They got informed about the scientific work of the university of Gdansk on this scientific field, they learned first hand knowledge about food production (factories) and cultivation (farms). They also learned to prepare food on their own, a skill that is already included in the Finnish curriculum and was demonstrated to the partner schools’ pupils. All this was vast multiplied to the other pupils in the three schools by the participating pupils – and through the internet sites of the schools, local news papers and, in Finland, nationally through the internet connections of the association “Martat”. We expected to bind some aspects into the schools’ curricula, and there has been a middle-term sustainability in the school organisations through this measure.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 86800 Eur

Project Coordinator

Karhulan koulu & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Ernestinenschule
• XV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Zjednoczonej Europy Gdansk