My city, from the past to the future: for a better life. Erasmus Project

Project Title

My city, from the past to the future: for a better life.

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

Project Summary

“My city: from the past to the future, for a better life” is a project which concerns the cities from five different schools and which will convey two ideas: the wealth and the protection of its cultural heritage and the preservation and improvement of citizens’ quality of life as far as environment is concerned. I feel good in my city thanks to its architectural wealth. However, if I want to keep this architectural wealth, I have to take care of it, protect my city for the future generations. So we have to understand that environment matters. Sustainable development was considered for the former generations as a burden, however nowadays, young people take it very seriously. Sustainable environment is a way of life but also an emergency and a vital problem. We live in different countries but we are preoccupied by the same environmental issues. Helping each other will enable us to better understand these issues and find solutions.
Our team is made up of 5 different schools from Poland, Spain, France, Germany and Portugal.They all represent the different faces of a city and its various issues related to the protection of cultural heritage and of sustainable environment. There is a European metropolis with strong and attractive densities (Cracow in Poland), a city with peri-urban areas (La Zubia 4km from Grenada in Spain); a middle city (Toul in France); two urban zones in the heart of country areas (Bernkastel-kues in Germany and Carregal do Sal in Portugal).
The diversity will encourage multilingualism since the languages spoken are English, French, German and Spanish.
Each school will send around 20/30 pupils aged from 13 to 16 years old. All the pupils are learning English and their second language is either French, German or Spanish.
One of our main purpose is inclusion, thus students with disabilities (cognitive functions) will be part of our project.
However the research work and virtual contacts will be shared by many other students in these schools, even if they cannot go on mobility.
Each school will present the wealth of its cultural heritage and we will work together on the various tools and methods we can use to preserve it. How does my city exploit its cultural heritage along by respecting the environment?
Our objective is also to put in common our researches and ideas in order to make our students aware of the sustainable development issues. We also want them to be conscious of the necessity to develop a better life for the future generations.
To reach these aims, we will work around several thematic areas: how can we provide sustainable energy?How can urban space and country space develop together? How can we handle water inside the city? How can we put ecotourism into place? How can we use eco-friendly transports?

This is our working plan:
– the protection of our cultural heritage is one of the two keys of our project. Our project will last the next two years. Thus, we will have virtual and real exchanges and collaborations on the protection of our cultural heritage. We will compare the different means established in the different cities.
– The other key is working around the best possible environment for my city. It will last two years with several steps. The first step, we will engage our researches around three axes: the first will be a look at the negative effects of the energies used in the past, non sustainable energies, and we will then study the necessity of handling sustainable ressources focusing on true examples used in France. The second axis will be the observation of the cohabitation between the urban space and the country space, and we will observe a successful cohabitation in Germany.
The last works (during the second year) will bring us to think of the best modalities to welcome the tourists as far as environmental impact is concerned. And to encourage our cities to limit the pollution of transports. These two themes will be studied in Portugal and in Poland.

Finally, we will make an overview of all the actions realized during the project, actions focusing on the protection of our cultural heritage, sustainable environment to allow us to live a better urban life. This synthesis will be promoted to other students, teachers, parents, local communities, municipalities and will be disseminated to a wide audience.
Through this project, we hope to encourage our students to struggle to preserve their cultural heritage, to protect the environment and to understand environmental issues in order to have a better life. We also want to give them the will to work alongside their European neighbors, understanding that we are all citizens of the same planet.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 164751 Eur

Project Coordinator

Collège Croix de Metz & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Szkoła Podstawowa z Oddziałem Dwujęzycznym im. Piotra Michałowskiego TSSP
• Nikolaus-von-Kues-Gymnasium
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Carregal do Sal
• IES LAUREL DE LA REINA