Living by the Sea Erasmus Project

Project Title

Living by the Sea

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Environment and climate change; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

The project “Living by the Sea” is a project that aims to put the town twinning between the German coastal town of Cuxhaven on the North Sea and the French coastal town of Vannes on the Atlantic on a broader basis by introducing young people aged 15/16 to international project work.
Around 24 students and 6 teachers from different subjects in both schools will function as key group of the project. They will take part in different activities and will be responsible for the evaluation and dissemination of the project within the schools and beyond. The students explore their own habitat and that of their partners with a special focus on topics that are important for their environment: getting to know the two seas as a habitat, recognizing climate change as well as marine pollution and the consequences in the immediate vicinity and developing possible own strategies for action / responsible consumption, comparing life on islands with life on the mainland, studying the corona shutdown and the consequences for areas shaped by tourism in an economic sense, and on the other hand developing possibilities for sustainable tourism. Parents will be invited to join the project not only as hosts but also as experts as the majority of the inhabitants in both cities live on tourism or another profession related to the topics mentioned above. Additionally, external institutions will be involved in the project: museums, municipalities, town twinning committees.
The project has different objectives: to create a greater awareness of one’s own living environment and to identify possible changes in one’s own behaviour that could lead to the preservation of the environment. In addition, the language skills, intercultural skills and technical abilities of all participants are to be improved and consolidated. Besides strengthening the bonds between the twintowns and increasing intercultural as well as foreign language skills, this project wants to make each single one of us aware of current environmental problems in the regions we live but also to learn about the EU’s objectives. We have to create willingness to change our current behaviour to contribute to the protection of living space to preserve it sustainably.
To this end, the students will create, under the guidance of the teachers, educational games about marine life on learning apps.org, flipped-classroom films and explanatory videos on topics related to their living environment (the oceans as habitat, climate change, water cycle, life on islands, …), virtual tours on google expeditions and action bound in English, French and German. These will also be made available to external partners so that they can use them, e.g. to make them available to a broad audience on their websites.
Additionally, the students will investigate the economic situation during and after the Corona shutdown. On the one hand, tourism is the main economic factor in both communities, on the other hand we want more environmental protection. Therefore, the project group will deal with the topic of sustainable tourism. The students will create and conduct surveys to find out how sustainable tourism is implemented in the two cities. The project group will then work on ways to make tourism more sustainable (waste avoidance, sustainable holiday games, art from flotsam and jetsam, …). For this purpose, posters will be created with professional software and displayed in public places. Other sustainable strategies to protect the environment we live in will be developed, for example portable ashtrays, reusable coffee cups, … .
All project outcomes will be published on the eTwinning platform and will be made accessible to the schools’ community and broad public via links on the schools’ websites and by offering external partners to add them to their websites. There will also be non-digital products, like posters on how to spend your holidays sustainably (waste separation, how to avoid plastic, sustainable holiday games, …) that will be laminated to be waterproof and hung up in public. Additionally, the students will create works of art from flotsam and jetsam and exhibit them publicly (e.g. in the town hall, in the library, in the school,…) and design and produce e.g. portable ashtrays and reusable coffee cups and distribute them in public (on the beach, in the city, …) to support environmental protection.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 65634 Eur

Project Coordinator

Amandus-Abendroth Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Lycée Général et technologique Charles de Gaulle