Shapes of Water Erasmus Project

Project Title

Shapes of Water

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: Health and wellbeing; Energy and resources; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

The Shapes of Water is a project tailored to 5 schools from 5 geographically different parts of Europe – Czech Republic, Portugal, Finland,
Azore Islands and Iceland. The previous cooperation in different projects provided a platform of effective methods and approaches towards modern and innovative learning. Participants of this project will spend 5 carefully designed weeks outdoors, exploring water in all its forms in 5 mutually intertwined mobilities. Each of the partners will host one mobility and will play the role of an organizer, provider, guide and a monitoring body. All the activities took inspiration in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, namely the 6th and the 12th (clean water and sanitation + underwater life) Since we are now entering the decade of action for these 17goals, who else should lead by example and act than us, the European schools.
The objectives are to offer the participants a chance to learn about and compare different water elements in various parts of Europe and enhance intercultural awareness and skills within the EU. The participants will not only see, they will get a deep insight into the issue by working on short-term and long-term products of the project. These are topical posters on particular issues, a calendar, worksheets, journals, operating water-testing kits and comparing results. project-website and social media. Increasing students’ motivation to learn about cultures is also an important objective, as well as helping students realize differences and similarities between partner countries related to their cultural, social and historical aspects that will enhance mutual understanding and respect for individual cultures.
It is one of project’s intentions to organize all of the above outdoors and let students and teachers work in the open air. Nowadays, too many educational activities take place indoors in front of computer screens, which, by most people, is seen as a negative by-product of modern education. This project tackles the issue by involving physical activity outdoors as a key source and provider of the desired output.
All the participants will be students of the same age group with interest in natural sciences. They will engage in informal chats and discussion to share opinions on issues induced by project activities. It is desired that 20 participants will directly attend each mobility. With 5 mobilities total it comes to 100 direct participants plus accompanying persons and countless of indirect ones. They will all benefit by assisting with preparation processes, processing data and results, discussing project activities in classes etc. About 300 people are estimated to take part in this project.
Participants will engage in clearly designed activities. Most activities will result from hiking in nature and activities taking place in nature. These are creating a set of larger scale posters, creation of web-hosted platforms, preparation of and work on worksheets for visiting schools, creating presentations for each mobility, ongoing work on handbooks from each mobility, writing articles for local newspapers and magazines..
The printed calendar made from the individual posters will be the major result of the project. They will be accessible in schools libraries and online. Some of the worksheets will also be used as a result, possibly in the long-term run in schools curricula. The website of the project will be created and maintained, where photos will be uploaded and results presented, as well as social media site. The impact we envisage is far-reaching. A strong European sense of membership is to be promoted.
The importance of unity and beauty of the union we are citizens of will be strenghtened. The possibilities of such a membership and extending borders beyond participants’ countries will be highlighted. Participants’ competences in natural sciences subjects will be enriched. They will gain ability to tag or label water-related phenomena in a universal language. They will get a precious opportunity to compare the water related elements and culture of their home country with the rest of Europe. The participants will be taught a positive and responsible approach towards water, which is becoming more and more an issue. We wish to alter participants’ lifestyles in a way to change their environmental thinking, specifically in relation to water and its distribution. Hopefully all participants will become aware of importance of water sustainability.
In the long-term, the project website with all its results and products will be accessible and promoted on schools websites, as schools are extremely proud of every such project or cooperation. The project will be presented as an example of good practice on open house days. The calendar and handbooks, as
key products, will be widely accessible at each school. The last but not least, lifelong friendships amongst not only participants but also European educational institutions will be made and initiated.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 156110 Eur

Project Coordinator

Stredni umeleckoprumyslova skola keramicka a sklarska Karlovy Vary, prispevkova organizace & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
• Menntaskólinn að Laugarvatni
• EBI Francisco Ferreira Drummond
• Agrupamento de Escolas Frei Heitor Pinto