Agriculture 2.0 – Enhancing students’ skills to combine tradition and innovation in the agriculture sector Erasmus Project

General information for the Agriculture 2.0 – Enhancing students’ skills to combine tradition and innovation in the agriculture sector Erasmus Project

Agriculture 2.0 – Enhancing students’ skills to combine tradition and innovation in the agriculture sector Erasmus Project
July 7, 2020 12:00 am
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Project Title

Agriculture 2.0 – Enhancing students’ skills to combine tradition and innovation in the agriculture sector

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 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Access for disadvantaged

Project Summary

In the last years, the future of Agriculture in Europe has been widely discussed touching key issues related to the involvement of the young generation in the sector, or the discrepancy that has always existed between the conservative vocation and the most innovative one using new technologies. A starting point for the renewal of the Agricultural sector has been found in the modernization of the mindset of those who work in the sector, starting from future workers and enhancing laboratory experiences in the classroom.

The project “AGRICULTURE 2.0 – Enhancing students’ skills to combine tradition and innovation in the agriculture sector” was born from the collaboration of educational institutes based in Italy, Latvia, Slovenia and Croatia who aspire to overcome the difficulties that today students face when entering the World of Work in the today’s farming sector, creating a specific training course targeted to students attending their third and fourth year (aged between 16-18 years).

The project aimed at achieving the following objectives:
– to support the transnational dialogue for the development of a modern and competitive Training Offer, which takes into account the demands of the labour market in the Agricultural sector to combine tradition and innovation;
– to promote the exchange of good practices among higher education institutions to equip students with soft and technical skills, promoting and exporting the use of an innovative teaching model such as the “School Laboratory”;
– to support the development of Agricultural traditions as an important source for the local economy, promoting the discovery of the biodiversity, of European policies linked to the agriculture sector and touching the topic of healthy nutrition thanks to the use and valorization of local products.

The program of activities planned from November 2017 until October 2019, has been organized as follows:
– research activities, collection of best practices and case studies, with particular attention to the experience of the “School Laboratory” carried out by the Institute Liceo Scientifico e Linguistico “B. Rescigno”;
– training course with the support of the eTwinning platform aimed to the establishment of long-distance relationships amongst twinned classes (40 students per each partner) and the exchange of training experiences, along with the foreign mobility experience (20 students selected amongst the participants) lasting one week to be hosted by the other partners;
– management of the projects developed by the students based on the “School Laboratory”;
– development of an action plan containing improvements to be made to the Educational Offer that every European School can repeat in order to modernize its curriculum.

As far as the methodology adopted, a number of good practices successfully tested by the partners have been selected, starting from the “School Laboratory” model, the “learning by doing” approach and the “shared participation” model.

The project has produced the following tangible results:
-a collection of best practices and case studies from the experiences in partner Countries, collected in an e-book;
– a training offer for the modernization of the Educational Offer of the parnter schools, according to a common pattern for development and internationalization;
– an innovative training program for students, composed by blended mobility (virtual and physical mobility;
– 4 projects developed and presented by the classes involved in the virtual twinning via the eTwinning platform for the discovery of biodiversity and local Agricultural traditions in a modern way;
– 4 promotional videos made by students;

The impact of the project “Agriculture 2.0” had relevance on:
– students: improved technical and soft skills (linguistic and ICT’s skills), discovery of the peculiarities offered by their territory, favoring the emergence of a critical and entrepreneurial thinking towards the Agricultural sector;
– Partner Schools: renewal of their Educational Offer, more strategic use of ICT in formal education contexts and inclusion of non-formal experiences in the training process; renewed dialogue between academic world and stakeholders and improved PM skills with opportunities of new collaborations;
– Target group: 1. students and teachers renewed teaching, starting from the use of new technological teaching aids; 2. stakeholders such as farmers and entrepreneurs: increased visibility towards the enhancement of innovative crops, with the recovery of local products and benefits of sales to local/transnational level; 3. School system: be a spokesman of the market needs; 4.Public Institutions: renewed strength in the dialogue with transnational partners.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 113215 Eur

Project Coordinator

Liceo Scientifico “B. Rescigno” & Country: IT

Project Partners

  • Srednja skola Antun Matijasevic – Karamaneo
  • Ventspils Valsts 1 gimnazija
  • SOLSKI CENTER NOVO MESTO