Our Past is our Future: Environmental and Cultural Sustainability Erasmus Project

Project Title

Our Past is our Future: Environmental and Cultural Sustainability

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; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Energy and resources

Project Summary

According to the UNESCO Background Note on the necessity of safeguarding cultural heritage (2013), “sustainable development and cultural heritage are inextricably linked since the latter plays a vital role in the protection of environmental resources and human wellbeing, especially due to the threats imposed by climate change, globalisation, urbanisation, the world financial crisis and growing inequalities”. At the same time, the European Commission stresses the significance of sustainable tourism. In its Communication, ‘Agenda for a sustainable and competitive European tourism’, it proposes “sustainable tourism actions … aiming at diversifying the tourism experiences on offer in the EU”.
In this context we have taken the initiative to propose an Erasmus+strategic partnership project coordinated by Greece and run in cooperation with Turkey, Italy, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic in order to foster our students’ awareness of environmental and cultural sustainability alongside encouraging entrepreneural initiative-taking in alternative tourism. Besides, we wish to give our students the chance to make life experiences by cooperating closely with other European students and to contribute to their personal development, the activation of European citizenship attitudes and the development of their basic skills and key competences.
All participating schools operate on the level of secondary education with pupils aged 15-18 years of age. The Italian school is a comprehensive school with an artistic orientation. The Turkish school is a vocational high school specialising in ICT. We all have some experience in EU programmes and cherish the idea of cooperating in this project sharing a deep concern in all the issues it addresses. Each school has initiated discussion of an activity with suggestions that have been endorsed by the other partner schools with great enthusiasm.
The activities proposed address diverse aspects of environmental issues, i.e renewable energy applications, organic agriculture, environmental interventions, sustainable architecture and urban planning; tangible and intangible forms of cultural heritage, i.e. agriculture, architecture, urban planning, ecosystems, language, art, music, nutrition, folklore, migration, medicinal practices; all of which accommodated in alternative tourist guide plans. For each acttivity there is a coordinator and an evaluator school team. The coordinator collects materials from all schools and assigns the presentation of the final products to another school.
As regards European cultural heritage, we aspire to create multi-modal texts such as:
– organic seed bags, a seed bombs game, organic orchards in schools
– sample tea bags, video guides to spas, the “Family doctor” role play, massage and exercise workshops
– an e-game identifying sustainable buildings and a photo exhibition of our common architectural styles
– a recipe book, role plays presenting local folklore, traditional games, dances, myths and tales
– artworks inspired by our cultures
– a DVD of a festival of traditional songs performed with traditional instruments and a choir from all six schools
– a comic narrating the history of our ancestor’s migration paths
As for Sustainability and Entrepreneurship, we want to sensitise our students about the energy crisis and other environmental hazards and encourage them to devise business plans aiming at preserving energy resources and biodiversity through innovative applications with a dual emphasis on Renewable Energy and Tourism. We intend to produce:
– documented interventions i.e. river renaturation, reforestation, beach cleaning; a film about sustainable urban planning
– 3D printed or built models of renewable energy applications, such as a solar car, solar battery chargers, wind-powered kites, pellet heaters etc; an e-catalogue of state and private green enterprises
– a website hosting local initiatives in the field of alternative tourism
As far as skills and key competences are concerned, our activities aim at fostering our students’ personal development with life skills, cross-curricular knowledge and transfer of knowledge, foreign language communicative competence, digital skills as well as 21st century citizenship competences and attitudes. Concretely, we are planning to:
– create and apply mini courses to peer teach our languages to our partners
– design and carry out our own tourist guiding programmes for virtual and actual sightseeing
To sustain our project’s products and extend its impact we will make sure that they can be used in the long term as teaching resources across our school curricula. To disseminate our messages and results to our local communities we will hold exhibiltions and other events with the aid of local authorities; to reach the global community we will exploit the EU education platforms and the social media.

Project Website

http://www.ourpastisourfuture.com

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 68887,8 Eur

Project Coordinator

3 GENIKO LYKEIO NEAS FILADELFEIAS “MILTOS KOUNTOURAS” & Country: EL

Project Partners

• COLEGIO CONCERTADO TORRE SALINAS
• Istituto di Istruzione Superiore Duni – Levi
• Kurt-Schumacher-Schule Karben
• Gymnazium, Celakovice, J. A. Komenskeho 414
• Mersinli Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi