OUR HERITAGE, OUR WEALTH Erasmus Project

Project Title

OUR HERITAGE, OUR WEALTH

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education

Project Summary

The main idea of our project was to make participants value their rich natural and cultural heritage, by seeing it not only as part of a culture but as a source of employment and wealth. The four participant schools (from Latvia, Poland, Italy and Spain) share some common conditions: all of them are situated in areas in which, for different reasons, population is ageing day by day and young people have very few possibilities to find jobs or to run a business. It is really important to make students aware of the huge potential their heritage contains, and provide them with additional knowledge about experiences that are successfully working in different places around Europe, in order to show them that perhaps they can find a way for their future career exploiting their own culture and natural resources.
At the beginning of the project, students were aged between fifteen and seventeen. Children from different social strata and with special needs were included. A group of 90 students and 15 teachers were the most directly involved participants, specially in the Learning, Teaching and Training activities. However, many other students and teachers in each school collaborated in the development of the programme and benefited from the intercultural exchange fostered by our project.
Students did research about the traditions in each area. They began focusing on a common thematic block, related to traditional cuisine and local produce: what was seasonally harvested, elaboration of food and drink, recipes, special dates… They shared their findings in the Twinspace pages and established discussions comparing traditions and creating an intercultural dialogue.
In addition, the events that took place in each country have been focused on specific points related to the possibilities of each area to make students discover economical perspectives of their heritage: beekeeping in Poland and in Spain, traditional crafts in Latvia, experiential sustainable tourism in Italy, perspectives of commercializing quality local produces in Spain and traditional sports in Spain and Italy. Because of the pandemic, the Latvian mobility was held in a virtual way. Thanks to the effort of Latvian students and teachers, the rest of the partners were allowed to approach Latvian traditions.
Each one of the mobility programmes helped participants to deepen their understanding of the diversity of the European heritage and its potential. They also gave participants the chance to meet young people and colleagues from other nationalities, to visit other European countries, to exchange points of view, ideas, new methods…
Participants developed fundamental skills, such as linguistic (especially improving the ability of communicating in a foreign language, English) and ICT skills. Teachers and students have created presentations, videos, quizzes… using different types of digital tools. At the beginning of the projects, teachers received training on creating and managing surveys and on designing attractive digital products. Teachers also exchanged experiences about “cooperative learning” during the Staff Training Event in Spain.
Students were involved in all the stages of the project, especially in the preparation and the organization of the mobilities. They created presentations about their town and their culture and showed them to the visitors (or to the rest of the partners, in the virtual mobility) The students’ entrepreneurship has been strengthened: they contributed to develop several activities during the visits. Many activities used the “learning by doing” methodology, such as cooking recipes from different countries, practising traditional sports, singing and dancing traditional music.
Among the tangible results we can highlight the Blog and the Twinspace. The Blog offers complete information about the project, the activities, participants… Some pages in the Twinspace are dedicated to a “Virtual Museum”, with cards presenting and describing relevant objects from each country. At the end of the project, a brochure summarizing our goals and achievements was printed. These results will remain available and open to everyone interested in our topics in our blog “Our heritage, our wealth”.
The impact of our work has surpassed our schools’ narrow framework to reach a wider audience in our local society. We reached different target audience profiles in our dissemination (families, local governments, associations, companies…)
This program has brought each partner school considerable profit in the educational field with the development of skills and the deepening of teachers’ knowledge. Pupils have learnt from professional knowledge and have gained awareness of potential careers related to cultural heritage. Through interaction with the partner schools, there has been reciprocal influence at European level, while strengthening at the same time the sense of belonging to a common European territory and the capacity for cross-border cooperation.

Project Website

http://ourheritageourwealth.blogspot.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 94569,7 Eur

Project Coordinator

INSTITUTO DE ENSEÑANZA SECUNDARIA CANGAS DEL NARCEA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych
• Ugales vidusskola
• IIS “M. RICCI” MACERATA