FuturEYEzing Erasmus Project

Project Title

FuturEYEzing

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Environment and climate change; Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy)

Project Summary

FuturEYEzing is a project about the future of our students. The goal of FuturEYEzing was to help students realize that their actions affect the future; that they have the power to create both positive and negative change in their world. This project worked actively to cultivate active citizenship through a structured series of activities, where students explored their personal, cultural and global contexts from a past-present-future perspective. Through research and collaboration with their peers from other countries, students explored the interrelated nature of life and the global impact of human choices.

This project was topic-based but skills-driven. Though exploring several topics, students developed a specific set of skills. The topics expanded from personal to global, starting with health and identity issues, moving on to education, work and technology, environmental issues and free time, and finally addressing the UN goals for 2030. Students researched and analyzed the topics, and then presented and discussed their findings. Each topic started with a brief exploration of history and an evaluation of our current circumstances. Then, students shared this background information with their peers from the other countries , and reflected on the future (“FuturEYES”) through the lens of that topic in a collaborative way. Students published their reflections and insights on blogs, which have become resources for further discussions beyond the project. This project involved a total of 50 students (14-15 years old) and 8 teachers from each participating country.

Students used elements of a methodology developed for Future Studies.

The first stage was to identify and monitor change. For example, for the topic of Health and Identity, students designed questionnaires and conducted surveys with their families to collect data about habits and compare similarities and differences. For the topic of Education and Work, the students researched education systems of their respective partners and prepared presentations. Interviews with people doing different jobs featured challenges and prospects in the workplace. For the topic of Environment and Leisure Time, the students researched major environmental issues of the world today to prepare campaigns which they conducted in their respective schools. This work prior to the exchanges was essential for the discussions of trends that followed when participants met face-to-face.

The second stage was to critique and analyze change, where students looked into contemporary research and trends regarding the topic. We used online resources, visited institutions, organized workshops, published insights on the blogs.

The third and fourth stages involved students in imagining alternatives and focusing on envisioning preferred alternatives and a course of action. These were important stages of the project where the students used their research findings and the understandings gained to make predictions as to the possible scenarios of social development in the future. Topics of future predictions involves healthy lifestyle and the importance of technology, education trends, smart cities, skills to succeed in one’s job or life in general, the most important problem in the future and ways to tackle it. These were captured on video, reflections in blogs or padlets. The UN Sustainable Development Goals, for example, were explored by the students through quizzes, songs, games, problem-solving activities and visits to local institutions. The final activity was a live speech-giving event, similar to a TED-talk show, where the students analyzed trends related to the goals and predicted possible outcomes/scenarios factoring human action, active citizenship, etc.

The tools used during the project to collect data were interviews, field trips, media texts analyses and trend assessments. We went through the above stages for all four steps/topics of the project. The students researched the topics in national groups but analyzed and presented their findings in cross-cultural teams and then published on our blogs.

This project dealt with the future, aiming for creating an impact on attitudes towards life. From the feedback we received from the students and parents, we noticed increased awareness of the problems the world faces; better knowledge of the factors that affect social trends and the importance of informed, responsible action to fight inequality, poverty, poor sanitation and climate change, to name just a few. In this sense, the project has made the students better prepared for their lives in the future. The dissemination activities on the other hand, informed our respective communities of the issues dealt with by the project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 92870 Eur

Project Coordinator

Nyvångskolan & Country: SE

Project Partners

• Institut Jaume Callís
• Gimnaziya s prepodavane na chuzhdi ezici “Romen Rolan”
• IX Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im Tadeusza Nowakowskiego z Oddzialami Dwujezycznymi