Learning to grow by protecting environment and humans Erasmus Project

Project Title

Learning to grow by protecting environment and humans

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: Agriculture, forestry and fisheries; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

“Learning to Produce while Protecting the Environment and Humans” was the main theme of our APPEL project. Faced with the demand of society for quality products, obtained with respect for nature, the partners not only exchanged good practices in market gardening, but also the teaching methods which allow “teaching to produce differently”, as well as education for citizenship, confirmation of European identity and multiculturalism.
The methods adopted or adapted have made the learner an actor in his training. Videos and applications on mobile phones during practical work, as well as games (role-playing or social games) for the acquisition of knowledge and reasoning, have made training courses more attractive for people who are often trying to find themselves.
The activities brought together 60 young people, including around ten with fewer opportunities. The joint training courses enabled 30 colleagues to engage in in-depth exchanges. In addition to these people, each meeting was attended by at least 25 local participants (staff from the establishments, farms and professional structures visited). In total, more than 250 people cooperated for more attractive and more palpable benefits in the short term and invaluable in the medium and long term.
The added value was acquired, first of all in the vocational particullarities: the multiplication of plants by seeds, cutting varieties. The forms of marketing, in direct sales, are very original. Tilled and untilled soil thanks to green manures. The self-construction of machines and tools to correspond to the particularities of the local data. Agroforestry with the forste of Mayotte, this natural multi-crop garden, which inspired the “Jardins du Plixbourg” farm. A project is tied up, and will be carried out according to the climatic conditions of the region.
On the educational level, it is in professional situations that a few methods have been developed; the emphasis remains on “teaching” and less on “producing differently”, since all the partners are in organic production.
In Coconi with the vanilla and chilli pepper plantations via videocapsules, the learner found himself the subject of his apprenticeship by creating a distance from the skills he builds up during filming, editing and recording of comments (reflexivity).
In Wintzenheim with the manufacturing of a market gardening tool and a reasoning of cause and effect: inclination of the parts to be welded according to its action on the soil or the control of green manure by a mobile application. In perennial benefit, knowing how to react and making a decision or reconciling with the knowledge of plants.
In Freiburg, a circuit, held by the apprentices, raised awareness of the virtues of the soil in every conceivable form of soil analysis: by checking between thumb and forefinger its consistency to the touch and its cracking to the ear; its granulometry and its nature to be crushed between the teeth, without neglecting the usual searches for Ph, humus content, the spade test and the discovery of a thousand billion microorganisms. Quite a benefit, after the abandonment of the living soil by intensive agriculture, the return to love of the soil…
In Langenlois, the professional situations were the extraction of seeds, the harvesting of winter vegetables: comparison and reflection on varieties that can withstand the cold and the sale of goods in restaurants. The visits allowed a good understanding of the mechanisms of the seed market: legislation favourable to monopolies with its official catalogue and certification against royalty-free and reproducible seeds as in organic market gardening, local farmers; awareness of the notion of added value for a rapid return of bio-diversity.
In terms of citizenship education, the harmony of man with nature in the Mahorayan garden, which is in total contrast with the reality of the social divide, has made it possible to question our democratic values and the origin of migratory flows almost on site. At the same time, the meeting in mobility of European structural programmes and the Erasmus+ project was, for example, the proof of solidarity and development in an ultra-peripheral territory: the illustration of one of the European identities with that of the EU regulations evoked in another context, finally was an identity reinforcement.

The contrasts in traditions and cultural heritage have made it possible to better accept differences and to be more tolerant of the evolution of civilisations.
The astonishment of the Mahorais people at the age-old longevity of our cathedrals and the astonishment of the young people of metropolitan France, Germany and Austria, diving in the colours of the coral reef and the tropical flora, all finally immersed by Erasmus+, will remain.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 124888 Eur

Project Coordinator

EPLEFPA “Les sillons de Haute Alsace” & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Edith-Stein-Schule Freiburg
• Etablissement Public National d’Enseignement et de Formation Professionnelle Agricole
• Landwirtschaftliche Fachschule Langenlois