Earth, Wind, Water and Fire Erasmus Project

Project Title

Earth, Wind, Water and Fire

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 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Early School Leaving / combating failure in education

Project Summary

In this project, five schools all across Europe – Germany, France, Lithuania, Poland and Turkey – unite in order to tackle the major differences that we, as teachers of these schools, perceive in the educational opportunities of our students. It is our task to constantly develop new ways to foster these students’ personal growth, education and development of self-confidence – a chance that they might not get otherwise.

According to our experience, it is particularly physical challenges and outdoor activities that boost these students’ self esteem, no matter what their special educational needs may be. And it is this type of self esteem that is believed to affect the professional chances of these youths positively in the long run.

Our project, which is called “Earth, Wind, Water and Fire”, is aimed at students who attend grades six to nine, while its major focus lies on students that are about twelve to fourteen years of age. Each of the five partner schools selects between 25 and 30 students to meet in each other’s countries, which makes a total of at least 140 students who will meet during the mobilities within a time frame of two years. In addition to that, other students from the local schools may participate in the activities held between the mobilities. All these youths are from widely diverse social and educational backgrounds, naturally holding very different educational needs.

The combination of the elements “fire, water, earth, air (wind)” is the central theme of this project.
After a short introduction into the topic that will take place at the first meeting in Germany, each school in the project is assigned one of these elements. “Fire”, for instance, matches the Polish school, as it was built on the grounds of an extinct volcano; “water” matches the Lithuanian school which lies amidst rivers and lakes; “earth” matches the Turkish school with its proximity to a beautiful dripstone cave nearby; and, finally, “air” (or “wind”), is a core element of the profile of our French school, where the training of wind energy technicians is an integral part of its educational programme.

The activities themselves are designed to pose challenges to the participants and help them achieve smaller or even bigger goals. Therefore, the activities need to go beyond the classroom setting and to deemphasize the mere reproduction/ accumulation of knowledge. Instead, the activities are designed in a way that triggers small personal (and team) successes so that the students learn what it feels like to have successfully overcome their fears and achieved something. The activities often take place in outside settings and therefore help the students to reconnect with nature.

Activities may include the following:
Hiking (e.g. to extinct volcanos), making camp fires, skiing, canoeing, paragliding and other physical challenges; discovering the miraculous workings of dripstone caves or the beauty of botanical gardens; workshops and creative activities as well as scientific experiment in groups that foster practical and autonomous learning.

During each activity, the students will produce videos that are all part of a “mini-series” consisting of a total of five “episodes” about their ventures in the respective host country. These videos will thus lead to “our first season” of a “mini-series” about the entire project.

The primary goal of the activities planned within the frame of this project is to boost the students’ self-confidence and motivate them to engage more actively in diverse learning situations. The students will discover their strengths and weaknesses and in turn accept their fellow students for who they really are and also help and support each other.
In turn, this experience will increase their welfare at school and help them to better tackle the challenges that await them throughout the remaining years at school. We believe that the project will help raise their interest in doing well and engage in school, overcome their fears of failure and prevent them from quitting school early.

In sum, this project will pay a major contribution to motivating our students and teachers and to develop further the approach to constantly challenge and foster our students. In the long term, this project will create an intercultural awareness for each other and help us all to engage in student-oriented, motivating, truly ‘active’ activities that will boost the self-confidence.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 134065 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gesamtschule Aspe & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Zespol Placowek Edukacyjno-Wychowawczych w Lwowku Slaskim
• COLLEGE JEAN JAURES
• Seyhan Danisment Gazi Anadolu Lisesi
• Atgimimas School