diScover OUR Cultural hEritage Erasmus Project

Project Title

diScover OUR Cultural hEritage

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Cultural heritage has a universal value for us as individuals, communities and societies. It forms the identity of countries and the way we live and it can be found all around us: in architecture and in nature but also in archaeological sites. We can’t only find it in our literature and art but also in music, films and the food we enjoy. Through cherishing our cultural heritage, we can discover our diversity and start an intercultural conversation about what we have in common. It is important to preserve and pass on to future generations. Since cultural heritage was the theme of the European year of 2018 we decided to start a project about cultural heritage in 2017 and after winning a cultural heritage award during the 2018 closing ceremony of the European Commission in Vienna, Austria we decided to apply for funding so our students and teachers involved will have an opportunity to experience, share and pass on our cultural heritage to others.
The main objectives of our project are:
– to encourage our students to discover and engage with Europe’s cultural heritage first-hand.
– Reinforce a sense of belonging to Europe
– Promoting teamwork and intercultural learning
– Practise foreign languages

The activities within our project will mainly take place virtually via eTwinning’s Twinspace. Our methodology are the four C’s of 21st century skills: communication, critical thinking, creativity and collaboration. English is for all participants a foreign language and it will be the language in which we communicate for us as teachers as well as for students. We would like to evoke a sense of critical thinking amongst our students by letting them discuss/think of what they consider to be cultural heritage and what they think they can learn from this project. Creativity is an integral part of our project as students will be doing tasks which they can form and produce as they see fit. They are the owners of their work and they are mostly working together on this project in (international) groups. Collaboration is key in our project through our activities.
The foremost result of these activities will be the creation of an interactive map of tangible and intangible cultural heritage made by our students. They have the opportunity to choose their own countries/sites and discover each other’s cultural heritage. Through research and communication with their peers abroad they will produce presentations which will be filmed and uploaded on the interactive map.

Another impact will be the ability to start friendships with pupils abroad with whom they can share their cultural heritage. Their parents will also play a vital part in this. When students physically visit each other they will also have a chance to live in their partners’ families and experience how other people in Europe live. As teachers we will also profit from these exchanges as we are able to professionalize our own practices by having the ability through this project to exchange good practices with partner schools . It is nice to see how other educational systems in Europe tackle cultural (heritage) lessons and/or how they teach this to their students. This might present opportunities to see how we can embed cultural (heritage) lessons in our own lessons/schools.

In short we would like to see if we can create a partnership which promotes understanding of each other’s cultural identity and will hopefully give way to a collaboration amongst our schools on the long term. So it is our belief that this project is an ideal way to further internationalisation on our schools and use this strategic partnership as a starting point for any future international projects. Besides this, we hope to inspire other schools as well by producing an eTwinning toolkit so they can use our experience as a premise to start a project about cultural heritage themselves.

Project Website

https://discoverourculturalheritage.weebly.com/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 21950 Eur

Project Coordinator

Sint Michael College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Gymnasio Adendrou
• Collège Paul Gauguin
• Scuola secondaria di primo grado STABIAE
• Instituto Enseñanza Secundaria SAN JOSE