Digital Education Readiness in Horticulture Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital Education Readiness in Horticulture

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

In this partnership for the promotion of digital education, the ZAWM Eupen from Belgium works together with five other partners, all of whom are active in the field of vocational education and training in horticulture.
These are four vocational schools or vocational training centres from Poland, Austria, Latvia and Switzerland. In addition, the association of European horticulture teachers, EU-Horticulture-Teacher asbl, based in Luxembourg, is also a partner whose main aim is to network European players in horticultural training. It is also active in the field of further training for horticulture teachers and organises, among other things, Europe-wide competitions for young gardeners.

In increasingly digitalised teaching, but also especially now during the corona pandemic, teachers must have opportunities to convey teaching content digitally, and learners must be able to train themselves digitally and have access to expert content for this purpose.
The ZAWM Eupen has very little experience with digital teaching materials so far, as does the partner school from Latvia. The partner schools from Poland, Austria and Switzerland, on the other hand, are already very experienced in digital teaching and therefore offer activities that are not offered or used in any other partner institution.
In concrete terms, the following teaching and learning activities are involved:

Creation of a digital herbarium of perennials for plant science lessons in conjunction with workshops for learning how to scan plants and create plant images with maximum depth of field by the Swiss partner.
Digitalisation of a school perennial garden with the seven areas of life of perennials, by the EU-Horticulture-Teacher association.
Possibilities for the use of “augmented reality” in horticultural education by the Austrian partner school and the production of learning videos on various topics of horticultural education such as vegetative or generative plant propagation, grafting of fruit trees, fruit tree pruning and care or the targeted production of symptoms of nutrient deficiency in plants by the learners of the partner schools from Poland, Latvia and Belgium.
In addition, teaching materials produced in past Erasmus projects will also be uploaded to this learning platform.
All together they are working on a digital “Escape Room” in a garden environment.
The association EU-Horticulture-Teacher asbl makes its homepage, which is still under construction, available for the distribution of these digital teaching and learning materials by adding a learning platform to this homepage.
These digital teaching materials will be produced in such a way that they can be used in other horticultural schools and by horticultural students in Europe, regardless of language.
They will be accessible via the homepage www.hortiteach.eu and published on the European results platform.
The local work of each partner to produce these digital training materials will be complemented by virtual and physical mobility and collaborative work between the learners and the teachers of the partners involved.
At each partner school, the learners of one or more classes of horticultural trainees, about 150 horticultural students from the age of about 16 years, directly participate with their teachers in the creation of these digital teaching materials, about 50 people participate in the mobilities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 114021 Eur

Project Coordinator

ZAWM VoG. & Country: BE

Project Partners

• EU-Horticulture-Teacher
• Berufsbildungszentrum Baselland
• Zespół Szkół Centrum Kształcenia Rolniczego im. Stanisława Szumca w Bielsku-Białej
• Sabiedriba ar ierobezotu atbildibu Bulduru Darzkopibas vidusskola
• Landwirtschaftliche Fachschule Langenlois