Green Skills for Social Agriculture Erasmus Project

Project Title

Green Skills for Social Agriculture

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The Partnership consisted of six schools from different European countries: Hungary, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Italy. Most of the partner schools had previous experience in European projects, however all shared common goals and were highly motivated to work collectively in the KA2 Partnerships for schools of the Erasmus plus program.
Our Project was a vertical one, entitled “Green Skills for Social Agriculture” and held as its main target to develop skills and competences among students belonging to the age range between 6 and 18 that is, primary to upper secondary level. The main focus was to prevent students’ early school leaving, providing them motivation for studying, basic skills improvement, and links between primary and secondary education in order to encounter some ways for their future studies.
Throughout our partnership, we were exposed to traditional local food products, with reference linked to each country’s territory, namely the apple from the project coordinator school in Diósd, Hungary, the grapes from Sandanski, Bulgaria, the olives from Volterra in the Tuscany region of Italy, the oranges from Seville, Spain, the honey from Oradea, Romania and the mastic from Athens, Greece. Valuable knowledge has been gained by each participant exploring and analyzing the food product’s cultural, scientific, ecological and economic components, getting acquainted with associations of local producers, studying ways of sustainable cultivation and agricultural traditions and participating in a wide range of activities, exchanging eating customs and organizing cooking workshops, particularly enjoying the cultural aspect and presentation of every local food.
The project activities aimed at improving the basic skills of students mainly in Literacy, Maths, Science, Foreign Languages and ICT. One of our main objectives was to encourage all students to participate, either with low motivation or learning difficulties, providing them the opportunity to gain self-esteem and recognition among their classmates as well as overcoming their discomfort for usually being ‘not present’. For the topics and activities chosen by all partners upon agreement were used interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary methods and cross curricular approaches, integrating teaching with practical workshops based on specific context and thematic areas. Our first encounters with the local chosen products and their territory background history came from various sources, while collaboration with stakeholders, promotion and worldwide dissemination of their valuable properties, enhanced our knowledge and drew our attention to aspects totally new to us, strengthening our awareness of the role that environmental, scientific and cultural components play in the enhancement and competitiveness of agriculture.
The first short term goal of the project was the identification and knowledge of each product. An in depth analysis followed with research into the components of cultural, scientific, environmental and economic issues related to the food product, culminating in the creation of a promotional campaign through various forms of media for the closing event of the European quality food festival held in Sandanski, where individual schools presented and promoted their local chosen products using the creative ideas and innovative ways that they had worked on throughout the second year of the project.
During the two- year expansion of the project, the students worked each time, either for a set of goals through various creative activities or for every mobility’s specific planned workshops e.g. logo competition, conducting surveys and video conferences, interviewing stakeholders, carrying out promotional campaigns or making educational field trips. They worked both individually on a local level and in cooperation, networking with their partners on site or during their scheduled mobilities, exchanging opinions and good practices.
Dissemination of our work was of utmost importance throughout the two years starting from the local level of the schools, for students and parent community, extending it to the municipality as well as the educational authorities before going public with press interviews with stakeholders as well as with radio commercials and shows on a national level through the media.
The project’s expected outcome however, beyond the wealth of benefits it brought to everyone involved, is continuity, well after its two-year duration which can be achieved with the creation of links between local and European schools as well as between schools and organizations that share a mutual interest in our topic. The school community planned and organized activities leading to the realization of products -in recorded (videos, radio shows, commercial spot, song) or digital form (e-books/photo albums) aiming at a wider impact outside the local environment and setting the grounds for sustainability.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 142195 Eur

Project Coordinator

Diósdi Eötvös József Német Nemzetiségi Általános Iskola és Alapfokú Muvészeti Iskola & Country: HU

Project Partners

• 26 Primary School of Kallithea, Athens
• ITCG Ferruccio Niccolini
• Zemedelska profesionalna gimnazia “Kliment Timiryazev”
• IES Severo Ochoa
• Scoala Gimnaziala SZACSVAY IMRE ORADEA