Promoting Awareness of Climate change through adopting and sharing smart practices within our school communities, locally and globally. Erasmus Project

Project Title

Promoting Awareness of Climate change through adopting and sharing smart practices within our school communities, locally and globally.

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: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; Environment and climate change; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning

Project Summary

The title of our project is ‘Promoting Awareness of Climate change through adopting and sharing smart practices within our school communities, locally and globally’. We believe that an awareness and an appreciation of the environment around us will motivate our pupils and our school community to adopt small changes that can lead to a more sustainable way of living. The backgrounds of our pupils are very different but the needs of our pupils are the same : to live in a healthy and safe environment not only for the children of today, but also for the children of tomorrow. The main aim of our project is to develop and promote a sustainable and healthy way of living and to appreciate the world around us through the sharing of experiences, ideas, and collaboration. Three of the partners have previously participated together in a very successful and fulfilling Erasmus partnership in the area of health and well being. In the past we concentrated on healthy eating, meditation, sports and music. Having found this to be an enriching and rewarding project, we decided to broaden our scope and focus on the world around us . Our health and well-being and the well -being of our planet are closely interlinked. We aim to promote an awareness of climate change and sustainable living while having fun together, develop understanding and mutual respect and to foster a mutually beneficial partnership which encourages a desire to work together and learn together. We aim to promote the similarities between our different cultures and people and to respect and embrace difference. We are all on a journey to a greener more sustainable world and as a partnership we will strive to help each other whatever stage of the journey we are on.
There are six schools participating in our project. They include Ireland, Greece, two schools from Poland and two schools from Italy. The six schools are diverse with three schools in cities, one in a small town, one in a large town and one in a small city.
There will be three main strands in the project. Firstly each school will choose an aspect of the current everyday school life that is negatively impacting on the environment and needs to be addressed. The schools will gather data relating to their chosen issue in their own schools and in the partner schools. We can then compare data and learn from each other. Secondly each school will develop an existing or create a new School garden.Each school will create a series of lessons linked to the seasons in the School Garden for Junior and Senior Classes. These lessons will be recorded and shared between schools using video and email.Finally we will organise a school based debating competition for our senior students. We will chose motions relating to Environmental issues. This will provide students with an opportunity to research and consider a variety of topics relating to climate change and the environment while developing oral language skills.
We will undertake a wide range of activities encompassing school based activities, virtual activities, ecological activities, etc. These include class to class projects via technological communications, creating pen pals, cycling safety courses, virtual co-operation between partner schools for sharing green initiatives, school garden ideas, GIY workshops, sustainable school ideas such as recycling and composting procedures, reducing congestion travelling to and from school initiatives and sharing music and art projects.
We will establish new whole school practices and have specific class to class pairings between partner schools. We will display the project on our eTwinning platform, on our own school websites and facebook pages, and on display areas in our schools and classrooms. We hope to improve awareness of climate change and improve our students knowledge and attitude towards our world. We will develop their sense and appreciation of what it means to be local, European and part of our planet. Our schools will also benefit by improved teaching and learning through mutual sharing of expertise. Teachers will learn more about their European colleagues, different education systems, teaching methodologies and practices.
The impact of our project would also be expected to reach a local and European level. While at a local level, the children, teachers and school community will embrace the project and it’s many activities, they will also be acutely aware that this project is a collaboration by a wider community and that climate awareness is both local and global . We hope that the by adopting and sharing smart practices such as creating school gardens, recycling/composting strategies, walking and cycling to school, minimizing single use plastics etc, all partners will continue on the journey towards a more sustainable future. We hope to build the foundation for continued partnerships and to develop the relationships we have with our European colleagues.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 111918 Eur

Project Coordinator

St Canice’s School & Country: IE

Project Partners

• Szkola Podstawowa nr 36 im. Zenona Wasilewskiego
• Istituto Comprensivo Melvin Jones Orazio Comes
• Szkola Podstawowa nr 164
• ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO MANERI – INGRASSIA – DON MILANI
• 1st PRIMARY SCHOOL TRIKALA