Recycling our world – Creating awareness for a sustainable Lifestyle in young Europeans Erasmus Project

Project Title

Recycling our world – Creating awareness for a sustainable Lifestyle in young Europeans

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: Civic engagement / responsible citizenship; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

In February 2017 a dead whale was found outside Bergen. The stomach of the wale was full of plastic. This story has been an awakening call and the story has been spread through media and social media all over the world.

We would like to help the whale to live in a cleaner environment, in a cleaner ocean. To obtain this, we have tried to create awareness of the problems, which are over-consuming and plastic pollution in the environment, and tried to find the methods how to solve these problems and address the consequences of over-consuming and redundant packing. The motivation for us to start the project was to raise awareness among our target group to try to find the correct information based on critical thinking and the tools for how to change their habits and behavior to make the living environment better not only for humans but also for the animals. In addition, the students learned ways to reach as many people as possible. Through international cooperation, both the students and teachers developed innovative methods to be used in the classroom after the end of the project. On the basis of acquired knowledge, the students shared the information with the local community level in all partnership countries.

Global climate change, pollution, and loss of biological diversity are among the biggest threats in the world. These challenges must be solved in cooperation, for that, we need knowledge, ethical consciousness, and technological innovation to find the solutions and make necessary changes in our lifestyle to take care of life on Earth. Therefore, the project has created awareness for a sustainable lifestyle, primarily addressing students between 14 and 16 years old, who would by then already have acquired some basic knowledge in regard to environmental challenges, and English language skills. Our partnership has been carried out with the Julius-Stursberg-Gymnasium in Germany, the Stryn ungdomsskule in Norway, and the Viljandi Gümnaasium in Estonia. All in all, about 25 students from each participating school have been involved, besides around 6 to 12 teachers from each school.

Our objectives have meant to raise the competence of both students and teachers, about the topic “awareness for a sustainable Lifestyle” but also about how students learn best and how teachers can support their learning processes. By developing students’ evaluation and reflection of their learning processes and their personal experience we wanted to make students more involved in their own learning processes. Developing the students’ skill of working in an international team of students with different backgrounds have developed language skills. In this project, we focused on the different steps of consumer habits and reflected on the influence on the environment, in order to develop a critical approach and achieve a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. We have raised the awareness of the need to study the subjects across the curricula and to help teachers to start using more innovative methods and practices in a reciprocal approach.

The methodology has been the same for all the LTT activities. Every activity had its own topic: Different faces of plastic, sorting recyclable rubbish according to their source material, recycling/redesign, recycling in general, food, increasing the use of sustainable packaging. Before the meeting, all schools had to prepare for the meeting’s topic by collecting information and digging into different aspects of the topic. During the activities, the students worked together in groups with students from each country during all the activities and planned learning activities to present at home. They also had to reflect upon how the topic affects our daily life. Can we improve our attitude to the topic? How? After the meeting, the students presented to the classmates the result / what they have learned from the gathering/topic using different methods, (Kahoot, presentation, lecture, etc.) They presented the activities for the teachers and students back home.

All the project meeting activities have contributed to achieving the project objectives. During the project meetings, the key competencies have been tackled via many different activities, like brainstorming, workshops in international teams, reflecting, and giving feedback. During the meetings, they have been actively and creatively participating in practical tasks, such as preparing for the science performance, making videos, posters or tables. The students have visited environmentally-friendly plants, factories, and other organizations which have provided additional material for the practical workshops.

The long-term benefits of this project have for the teachers mainly been that they use and share the best innovative methods and practices in their everyday teaching. The students and teachers have raised their social and language skills and hopefully changed their consumer habits.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 83890 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stryn ungdomsskule & Country: NO

Project Partners

• Julius-Stursberg-Gymnasium
• Viljandi Gümnaasium