European heritage builds European identity Erasmus Project

Project Title

European heritage builds European identity

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The project “European heritage builds European identity” is an Erasmus+229 project in which four schools participate: Paralias High School of Kalamata (Kalamata, Greece), Adolf-Schmitthenner-Gymnasium (Neckarbischofsheim, Germany), Gymnasio Latsion (Latsia, Cyprus) and IIS” Vincenzo Cardarelli” (Tarquinia, Italy). The motivation of the project is to build the European identity of our pupils through the deeper knowledge of their national culture and to make our pupils European citizens, as Europe encounters serious problems and its citizens are skeptical towards the European unification and the focusing on the economic aspects. We believe that culture, beyond local differences, unites us and creates links that help us live together so European heritage should be an important part of our education.
The objectives of our project are extended to our pupils, to teachers participants, to our schools as a whole and our local communities. More specifically: to the pupils: to learn their culture better and the culture and everyday life of other European countries, to realize how they contribute to the creation of European citizenship, to improve their language skills in English and ICT, to learn through formal, informal and non-formal education and be motivated, to change their attitude towards school and realize that cultural heritage can be a field of entrepreneurship and professional employment, to cooperate with peers and create new friendships. To the teachers: to explore the cultural education within the context of cooperative learning, blended learning and acquire new educational methods and tools theoretically and practically through the JSTE and short-term mobilities of pupils. All these will be disseminated to the school community and affect other teachers as well and make our school more competitive. Members of the local communities (parents, authorities, cultural institutions, museums, archaeological sites) will be involved in the project and benefit of it.
We are planning two Joint staff training events for two teachers from each school, one at the beginning of the project focused on new methodologies that will help the implementation of the project and one at the end to use all the gained experience and results to create a mini-curriculum that could be used in our schools even after the end of the project. We are planning four short- term exchanges of groups of pupils, one (six pupils and two teachers from each country) in each participant’s country, in order to explore different aspects of European cultural heritage that create the European identity: antiquity in Greece and Italy, Venetian occupation (Cyprus), baroque (17th-18th century in Germany).
The program includes field trip activities, participation in art, music and cultural activities, visits to historical, archaeological and cultural sites. During the mobilities, the pupils will work in transnational groups, explore, study, present the results of their work, upload the results on the twinspace and the website of the project. We intend to use different ways to motivate the pupils and achieve our objectives: debates, creative writing, photos, videos, role-playing, lectures, drama, dance, quizzes, contests, team building activities, project-based working, multimedia and web resources, brainstorming, working in groups, educational games and generally activities promoting better mutual understanding between cultures and partners. The methodology that will be used is aimed at active participation through interactive and experiential approaches combining theory and practice.

The pupils and the teachers will visit important cultural sites in different countries, understand and protect the unique value of cultural heritage and have the opportunity for personal, social, cultural and professional growth. They will realize that all the cultural places they will visit form different aspects of the same civilization, the European. The project can create a learning partnership between schools, institution and the civil society.
All participants are expected to maintain access and communication with the rest of their colleagues and participate in useful discussions through the virtual classroom platform and via e-mail, individual Skype calls, telephone or WhatsApp. By means of all these tools, we aim to get an effective follow-up, to stimulate peer networking, to keep in touch and to share opinions, experiences, and practices for unlimited time.

In the long term, teachers will be able to design creative lessons that help stimulate students’ curiosity and ability to observe, read and critically thinking towards culture and European history. At the end of the project, we hope that our pupils will be more aware of their European identity.

Project Website

https://roykalamata.wixsite.com/european-heritage

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 115971 Eur

Project Coordinator

PARALIAS HIGH SCHOOL OF KALAMATA & Country: EL

Project Partners

• IIS” Vincenzo Cardarelli” Tarquinia
• Adolf-Schmitthenner-Gymnasium Neckarbischofsheim
• Gymnasio Latsion