Eurotopia – Building a better future by developing an eco-friendly lifestyle Erasmus Project

Project Title

Eurotopia – Building a better future by developing an eco-friendly lifestyle

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: Environment and climate change; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Energy and resources

Project Summary

Industrialization, globalization and modern consumer society have led to changes and problems in the fields of environment and climate. Especially industrial nations have to find solutions to those changes and problems, before irreversible damage has been done. Those solutions have to be found on different levels, though. Many people expect solutions on the political level – be it the regional, national, European or even global ones – via laws, treaties, contracts etc.. But there is only a rudimentary awareness that each citizen can and has to contribute to the solution, too, by having a personal lifestyle that is, for instance, characterized by the effort to save energy and avoid refuse. School is an institution whose teaching mission includes teaching students to act responsibly in society and at the same time it is a place, where such behaviour should be practised.

This is the reason why it is one key objective of our project to enable the participants as well as other members of our school communities to recognize and understand problems in the fields of environment and energy consumption and, ideally, initiate a change in their personal lifestyles – so theory and practice work hand in hand. The participants from the five schools will approach each aspect of the topic from their own point of view, which is influenced by the region / country they live in, and come to fresh approaches / solutions by sharing their thoughts.

We will mainly choose the participants for the project among the members of our Erasmus Plus school clubs since self-motivation and commitment with regard to the topic at hand are desirable, especially since those students will present the results of the project meetings to other students and teachers at our schools. In general, it is of great importance to make sure that as many members of our school communities are either included in the project directly or profit from its results.

The project consists of five modules, each of which deals with one aspect of the topic:
– Saving the environment 1 – Creating public awareness
– Saving the environment 2 – How to avoid refuse?!
– Saving energy 1 – How to save energy?!
– Saving energy 2 – Eco-friendly food
– Saving resources – Turning trash into art
We will work on one of those modules at each of the project meetings.

Each project meeting will have a similar structure: in preparation of the meeting the participants of each partner school will create a presentation on the topic of the module, in which they present their own situation, the situation at their school and / or the situation in their country. Those presentations are then given in front of all the participants at the beginning of the project meeting, which leads to a change of perspective and a widening of each participant’s horizon with regard to the topic. These presentations will serve as the basis for tasks, which the students will then have to work on in groups that consist of students from each school, and which will have tangible results:
– a “flashmob” on the topics of “ecological problems / eco-friendly behaviour” (project meeting 1)
– a flyer which gives advice on how the avoid refuse (project meeting 2)
– a poster which gives advice on how to save energy (project meeting 3)
– a seal of quality for eco-friendly food (project meeting 4)
– a “turning refuse into art” exhibition (project meeting 5)
The results of project meetings 2,3 and 4 will first be presented at the school that hosts the meeting and later at the partner schools. They will be presented to students and teachers who participate directly in the project as well as to students and teachers who don’t. There will be a vote on the best product (flyer, poster,…) each time, since the best products of all the modules will be presented at the final project meeting, and then be published and spread at all the schools in the native languages and via TwinSpace.
In addition to that a film about the project work will be made at all the project meetings and published at the schools and on TwinSpace.

The potential long-term effects of the results of our project are that the flyers, posters, videos, and seals of quality might have an effect on the lifestyle of those who see them and might also lead to changes at our schools (e.g. avoidance of trash, less energy consumption, food from regional sources at the school cafeterias).

Our main objective is to contribute with our project work and its results to the development of a general strategy at our schools with regard to eco-friendly behaviour.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 152840 Eur

Project Coordinator

Herzog-Johann-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Ikaalisten kaupunki
• BORG Mittersill
• Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore “Leonardo da Vinci”
• A.Giedraitis-Giedrius Gymnasium