Brownfield sites and Sustainable Development – How a school can affect the local environment Erasmus Project

Project Title

Brownfield sites and Sustainable Development – How a school can affect the local environment

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: Environment and climate change; Natural sciences; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

1. Context/background of project. The project introduced the problem of brownfield sites in the local environment in the classroom. In the partnership, there were five schools of different types, from Northern or Middle Europe, East and West, located in very different settlements. We approached the problem of brownfield sites in a way of education for sustainable development. We followed the interdisciplinary approach, as we included different school subject around one specific environmental problem. We developed independent and interdependent thinking about the environment among our teachers and pupils in a certain degree.

2. Objectives of the project. In the course of the project, our schools have developed cooperation in international environment among the pupils and the teachers of our partnership. We increased the level of using ICT by our teachers as well as by our pupils. With the involvement of natural scientific methods, we showed involved pupils how to estimate the health of environment in their local environment. Our schools got connected with various NGO-s, experts and government bodies from the field. We included more pupils with fewer chances in our project – we hope we avoid early school leaving by some of them. We certainly enriched the school culture of our organisations with strengthening the ties with the local community.

3. Number and profile of participants. We planned that in the core activities, up to eight teachers and up to 20 pupils from every school would take part. Since the school have different staff size, we couldn’t always ensure the envisaged diversity but we believe, we involved more pupils and teachers, partly thanks to extension of the project for a year. The selection of the pupils followed gender balance; we included some of those fewer opportunities. In the local activities and events, more pupils were included.

4. Description of activities: Initially five Learning Teaching Training Activities were extended with one at the end. The first one was the kick off meeting for teachers. The next five were mainly for the pupils. In the first one, they learned about environmental monitoring and big city brownfield sites; the second one made them familiar with natural habitat and small city brownfield sites; the third one trained them to work with ICT tools; the fourth one made them policy skilled and taught them about political actions. Because the last one was carried out virtually due covid-19 pandemics, we made the sixth one in Brussels: The pupils learned about the EU institutions and their politics. Besides that, we added various local activities and events, we conducted a survey, started a public campaign, with the cooperation of regional environmental NGO-s and environment monitoring research institutions.

5. Methodology, used in the project. Tasks should be equally distributed among the partners. Every school sets up one LTT activity. One is responsible for communication design, one for ICT, one for compilation and publishing, local events are in the responsibility of every single partner. There will be regular video conferences, regular activity checks every six months; the communication should be bundled up and be tracked in order to avoid overload and misunderstanding.

6. Not all envisaged results and impact were established. We raised the awareness about the brownfield sites in the local community. We did a survey on brownfield among pupils and teachers; we published a compendium of best practices, guidelines for dealing with brownfield in the school. We searched for solutions for brownfield sites in the local community; pupils understand the complexity of brownfields. Natural scientific methods are used by pupils; they can interpret the results; they can start a social/political action.

7. The potential long-term benefits. Brownfield sites in the local community remain in the focus of different school subjects included in the project. Usage of some ICT tools increased among pupils and teachers. Some teachers from our schools increased their international cooperation with smaller projects (eTwinning). The cooperation with the local community became more usual.

Project Website

https://brownfields.splet.arnes.si/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 117865 Eur

Project Coordinator

Lundarskoli & Country: IS

Project Partners

• Vyssi odborna skola ekonomickych studii, Stredni prumyslova skola potravinarskych technologii a Stredni odborna skola prirodovedna a veterinarni, Praha 2, Podskalska 10
• Srednja sola Domzale
• Kristinedalskolan
• Suure-Jaani Gümnaasium