Everybody wants to heal the world Erasmus Project

Project Title

Everybody wants to heal the world

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: Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

“Everybody wants to heal the world”
The project’s title expresses its main aim: to study climate change and to improve our environmental situation, hence to heal the world from severe damage.
Planning of the project was initiated when the need for such a project was made clear by our students’ strong interest in this topic pointing at an obvious lack of curricular background or school policies at the four partner schools. During the application process the importance of a stronger focus on climate change and environmental aspects was further illustrated by the fact that research showed a link between the Coronavirus outbreak and environmental problems.
The project’s main target group are students aged 13-15 at the four partner schools: Paris (France), Neath (UK), Alicante (Spain) and Hildesheim (Germany). At this age, the students become more aware of the situation around them and question decisions made with regard to climate change but usually need our support to understand the full picture – i.e. the large scope of the problems created and dangers posed by climate change but also how everybody’s own actions and behaviour can tackle this threat to a certain extent.
That’s why the project will work on two levels and combine these: there will be activities on school/local level but also on European level as this is a truly supra-national topic and cannot be dealt with in the close boundaries of national politics.
About 400 students will be directly involved in the project,its mobilities and activities with a much larger number of students, families, and local communities being affected and influenced by the project and its results in the short and long term.
Newly founded groups of Environmental Ambassadors will lead the schools’ endeavours to change into a climate-friendly environment in the long term and provide sustainability of the project’s results at all schools even after it has formally ended. A Climate Change Policy will be developed serving as mission statement but also comprising clear guidelines, advice and material for teachers and school administration with regard to a respective curriculum. Its implementation at all schools will also lead to a long-term impact.
By directly including the students not only in research of the topic of climate change but also by focusing on personal options and actions as well as supra-national activities, critical thinking will be enhanced and behaviour patterns be changed towards a more climate and environmentally friendly lifestyle. Especially this new awareness of the situation, its threats but also the importance of personal choices will lead to a changed behaviour in students. Students involved in this project are spreaders of their new knowledge and attitudes to all other students at the schools, families and the wider local communities.
Including other local stakeholders such as experts and local/national/international
organizations and institutions will contribute to reaching the project’s objectives but also serve as an integral part of the multi-faceted topic. As the topic cannot be grasped by looking at local and/ or national situations alone, four LTTs are essential parts of the project and embedded in the project structure. Only due to these the true scale of climate change and related problems will become visible but also ideas to mitigate the results and approaches to heal the world can be seen, compared and transferred. In line with the project aims, travelling to these LTTs and/ or to other project activities will be conducted using sustainable means of transport as far as possible.
There are four project each being led by one school:
I. Climate change and I
II. Climate change and our landscapes
III. Climate change and city life
IV. Climate change and water + tourism
The four project parts all consist of 3 stages with the 1st creating awareness for a certain aspect of climate change and researching it and measures to tackle it on various levels (local,national,European). The 2nd stage consists of the LTT during which the previously researched aspects are presented, compared, discussed and studied on certain local examples. The places of the LTTs have been chosen and organised in such as way that the interrelation between the different aspects of climate change, actions but also the geographical/ national situations will become clear. This leads to the 3rd stage where the students will transfer their knowledge onto (local) activities related to these aspects. Here students are encouraged to get active by e.g. developing a cycle scheme for their school, constructing a green wall, setting up a second hand clothes scheme etc.
Knowing about the importance of these small local steps and having identified best practice example in the previous stage of the project will help students understand the impact this small step has on the situation as a whole and that a change in behaviour and many small steps can indeed heal our world.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 126450 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnasium Marienschule Hildesheim & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Llangatwg Community School
• Fundación Universitaria San Pablo Ceu
• Lycée Sainte Ursule-Louise de Bettignies Paris 17 ème