i-City Erasmus Project

Project Title

i-City

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Our project, i-City, was carefully designed to benefit all stakeholders in both the short and long term. An established partnership recruited 2 new schools to the group and together we decided to tackle the problems facing urban planners by challenging our pupils to learn about and then design all the elements that make up a modern, purpose-built city: our overall objective was to produce a set of plans for a new city and recommendations for improvements to our respective current urban environments. It involved work across the curriculum as we studied the history of town-planning, the key geographical considerations in locating a new urban development, the infrastructure needed to supply a large population with food, shelter and power, changing population profiles, and the meeting of cultural, spiritual and health needs of all age-groups. We also fostered the participation and support of the wider school and local communities, making visits to relevant sites and the expertise of teachers and external professionals who came into schools to give talks and/or workshops.
Teachers’ roles were to motivate, facilitate and oversee the pupils’ execution of the work; at the same time, we collaborated and shared ideas/best practice. We all needed to up-skill in ICT software such as Sketch-Up, the design software package chosen for the i-City plans, as well as presentation formats such as e-books and interactive apps; consequently, we recruited outside expertise to support our professional development. The individual partner schools built links with experts, businesses and public authorities in their local areas, cascading their pedagogical experience and skills to the extended teaching community via e-Twinning, a series ‘Teach-Meet’ style events and the project website.
Large numbers of pupils aged 13-16 years participated in the 2-year project tapping into their innate creativity, increasing their knowledge of a wide range of current issues related to housing the growing, ageing and multi-cultural communities of the immediate future and exposing them to international cooperative team work. Using both Erasmus+ and private funding, and homestay accommodation, we facilitated the movement of between 30 and 50 students from each school over the course of the project; what’s more, all in-school participants also had contact with peers from 5 other countries and, in parallel, their academic learning developed skills in ICT, communication and languages.
As planned our i-City project took place in 6 phases, corresponding to school terms over 2 years; each phase had a research project resulting in a number of sub-products: presentations of research undertaken, a section of the i-City design, a page of the language glossary, a piece of merchandising and each phase culminated in an international meeting of pupils and teachers. Each partner school had responsibility for a learning phase, hosts the respective meeting and also took on an administrative role, with one school acting as overall coordinator giving a reference point and trouble shooter should the need arise. Good communication and reporting systems were key to the project’s success and to that end we built in regular evaluation and review points, 2 coordinator meetings and used communications software (e-Twinning, Whatsapp, e-mail, e-surveys and a project website). Each school also promoted the project via school web-pages, newsletters, Twitter/Facebook accounts and a series of cascade events for the teaching/stakeholder communities.
To our great dismay, our project was cut short by the imposition of Europe-wide COVID-19 lockdown; as schools were not re-opened until after the project end, the final 2 phases of the project were not completed and we were unable to pick up at a later stage given the age range of our participants: the majority had left the schools. We have pulled together to round up and produce the best results possible from the 4 completed stages.
The impact for individuals – whether teachers or pupils – beyond the knowledge gained and immediate experience of participation, included the up-skilling and potential professional success in the future as improved CVs and extensive experience open new doors in the worlds of further education and of employment. For the institutions and other stakeholders there are now strengthened links, shared expertise, and we hope to attract a greater field of skilled applicants to participate in future projects. The schools have significantly raised profiles as every effort was made to involve local media in major project events; were any local authorities to take up any of the suggestions for urban improvement submitted by the pupils, then local communities will benefit from the project work in a most meaningful and tangible way. On a personal level there are many students still in touch with each other having made lasting friendships during the international meetings and the coordinator team remains in constant contact.

Project Website

http://www.myidealcity.altervista.org/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 167032 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stroud High School & Country: UK

Project Partners

• Liceo Scientifico Statale Democrito
• Colegio Santo Ángel de la Guarda
• IZMIR ANADOLU LISESI
• Scoala Gimnaziala “Ion Bancila”
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Gondifelos