Greener together. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Greener together.

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: Environment and climate change; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

The “Greener together/Juntos más verde” project stems from our desire as foreign language teachers to have a communicative practice of languages, to develop awareness towards environmental issues and to foster the cultural openness of their students. Two secondary schools are concerned: the college Véron de Forbonnais located in Saint Cosme en Vairais, France and IES Pablo de Olavide located in Luisiana, Spain. Both schools began their collaboration with an eTwinning project called “Go greener” in 2019. This project allowed the involved teachers to work together and work on environmental issues with their students. The Erasmus KA229 project is a continuation of the initial eTwinning project.

Goals of the project
The main goal is to develop students’ ecological awareness and help them to think about the environmental challenges we are facing.
The second goal is to foster social inclusion and develop cultural openness. The pupils involved are rather disadvantaged and geographically isolated, they will be able to engage in a European project enabling them to acquire the social, civic and intercultural skills necessary for their personal development. The third goal is to promote a pragmatic and dynamic approach to language learning.

Number and profile of participants
The project will take place over 24 months and will involve 50 students per school. In the first year, IES P. de Olavide will involve 25 students (15 years) and Collège V. de Forbonnais will involve 25 students (14-15 years). The second year each school will involve 25 students per school in the next cohort. Students at both schools live in rural areas and are mostly disadvantaged economically. The educational teams concerned are therefore committed to increasing the cultural openness of pupils and strengthening their European identity.

Description of the activities
“Greener together/Junto mas Verde” is part of sustainable development education and foreign languages programs. The teachers involved will have worked on the lexicon and concepts related to environment beforehand. The work produced during these teaching sequences will be shared in a dedicated twinspace via eTwinning. A twinspace dedicated to the eTwinning project will allow the pooling of preparatory work for transnational meetings and the drafting of a project journal. The project will include 4 meetings. Each meeting will deal with a different theme through the lens of sustainable development: zero waste, culinary heritage, consumption and tourism. Each meeting will last 4 days and will take place according to an identical scheme.They will begin with a moment of conviviality, presentation and discovery via a trail game on ecological practices in schools and a symbolic tree planting in the schools. Then follow the workshops related to the theme of each meeting. Each workshop will lead to concrete productions (manufacture of upcycled objects, ecological products, cooking workshops, filmed tutorials, quizzes/surveys, creation of posters, fashion shows, green walks with waste collection, drafting of charter) which will be presented both virtually on the twinspace but also to the public at the open evenings that will close each meeting. Transnational meetings will also be an opportunity for visits that are both ecologically relevant and culturally enriching. These meetings will allow students to reflect on these themes in their daily lives and to forge their identity as eco-citizens.

Methodology:
Monthly meetings will be held at each school to review project progress. The Collège Véron de Forbonnais will be the project coordinator. It will be responsible for the communication between the partners by email, google drive or videoconference and for the organisation of the project stages. Each school will be responsible for its internal communication but also at the local level. The secondary school of La Luisiana will be responsible for the dissemination of the project on the web (e-twinning, social networks, Mobility tool+, national and European institutions, etc.). Each partner will be fully involved.

Description of the results
The productions and the project diary will be centralized on eTwinning. Students will be able to follow the progress of the project and share their work. The assessment of the project will be carried out by the Collège de St Cosme en Vairais through surveys and reviews published on twinspace. The different activities carried out during the project will be disseminated on different media: the schools’ web pages, social networks and open days.

Impacts and benefits
We expect this project to meet the stated ecological, social, cultural and linguistic objectives. We hope that the students’ experience and the reflections related to the pedagogical activities will help them to become adults open to others and aware of their ecological impact. This project will also imply an innovative teaching process which involves all the educational community.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65740 Eur

Project Coordinator

COLLEGE VERON DE FORBONNAIS & Country: FR

Project Partners

• IES Pablo de Olavide