A Digital Program for Sexual Education in Secondary Schools Erasmus Project

Project Title

A Digital Program for Sexual Education in Secondary Schools

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 school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Early School Leaving / combating failure in education; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

Secondary schools are important settings for sexual education as they reach most of the European school aged population. School is the official provider of sexual education and could generally be an equalizer of health differences. Several changes in teenage culture have rapidly moved objectives and relevance of sexual education. The digitalizing world has also changed perspectives on sex education. There is a lot of information on offer and it is easily accessible. Through the Internet and social media, new forms of sexual harassment have become part of the daily lives of young people. Young people need discussion with adults about sexuality. The fact that the opportunities for discussion offered and the information provided meet the information needs of young people play an important role.

The basic idea of A Digital Program for Sexual Education in Secondary Schools (EDDIS) project was to develop an eLearning platform about sexual education for secondary schools. The platform was developed in cooperation with pupils, teachers and sexual education experts from four European countries: Finland, Greece, Lithuania and Portugal. The project consortium combined various cultural and religious backgrounds. The key objective was to increase basic knowledge about the sexual health and sexuality among the youth between 13-16 years. Previously, there has been a lot of sex education material available, but it did not include the voices of children and young people. In EDDIS project, they have been actively involved in planning the material.

There were three main objectives of the EDDIS project:
1. To identify the information needs of young people about sexual education and meaningful ways to learn sexuality.
2. To develop a model where young people are involved in the production of sexual health education material
3. To develop a unified eLearning sexual education platform for Europeans secondary school pupils.

The project consisted of five different phases, and in each of them young people were closely involved. In the early stages of the project, students were surveyed using different methods to find out what kind of sexual health information is needed and how it would be good to learn it in schools. In addition, these issues were clarified in the previous literature and in the legislation, recommendations and guidelines of the countries participating in the project.

In the second phase, 40 young people aged 13-16 from each of the countries participating in the project gathered in Klaipeda, Lithuania, to work on the body of the learning platform together with teachers and experts. At this camp, the themes and form of the learning platform were created through small group discussions, brainstorming and drama. The camp proved to be a very effective way to develop something new together with young people.

In the third phase of the project, young people in each country produced learning materials for the learning platform. The learning platform has a varying number of different tasks to do alone and to be considered and tested with the class. The best of the assignments got to the learning platform itself and to be translated into the languages of other countries. The assignments on the learning platform are available in five different languages (English, Finnish, Lithuanian, Greek and Portuguese).

In the fourth phase of the project, the young people and their teachers tested the tasks and their functionality as part of their lessons and provided feedback on both the individual tasks and the whole learning platform.

In the final phase, the learning platform was further modified based on feedback from young people and the assessment of teachers and experts.
All created outcomes are available to all youth, teachers, parents, healthcare professionals, experts, nursing and public health students and researchers across Europe.

The impact of the EDDIS project can be seen in various levels concerning all the target groups. With the EDDIS project results the sexual education will be more interactive. The outcomes of this project provide the pupils with an interesting and meaningful way to learn sexual health issues. Pupils benefit from the project by developing their competences in caring of and respecting their own and others´ sexual health. In the longer time scale, it could be foreseen that the pupils will achieve better sexual health. The teachers and health experts in schools will benefit from new learning methods and tools.

On community and national level EDDIS project contributes to good sexual health of all Europeans. The results of this project reply to the clear need of new methods and digital solutions as well as culturally sensitive learning solutions that promote European strategies for sexual education and good sexual health of all European citizens.

Project Website

https://eddis.turkuamk.fi/fi/etusivu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 192570 Eur

Project Coordinator

TURUN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY & Country: FI

Project Partners

• Vasaramäen koulu
• PANEPISTIMIO DYTIKIS ATTIKIS
• ESCOLA SUPERIOR DE ENFERMAGEM DE LISBOA (ESEL)
• Klaipedos Versmes progimnazija
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Santo António
• BI Klaipedos miesto visuomenes sveikatos biuras
• 9th high school kallitheas “Manos Xatzidakis”