SHARKS – Sustainability Heroes and Restless Knights in School Erasmus Project

Project Title

SHARKS – Sustainability Heroes and Restless Knights in School

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: Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Environment and climate change; Civic engagement / responsible citizenship

Project Summary

The idea of sustainability is a wide approach everybody is talking about in a time when environmental problems induced by various human interaction in the earth’s ecosystem are requiring serious solutions. By now, sustainability has been embedded as an explicit key objective in some school’s philosophies. Not only as a result of the current social discussions (e.g. Fridays for Future), which have been initiated in particular by our core clientele, pupils, are we aware of our overall educational task to teach pupils to become individuals who think and act sustainably, so that, in accordance with the Brundtland definition (“Sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”), future generations will still be able to satisfy their needs. The term sustainability is associated with numerous multidimensional and global challenges, such as climate change, extinction of species, waste and plastic reduction, migration and human rights. These are challenges on which politics, economy, science and society must work together in global cooperation in order to find sustainable solutions. Concerning this topic, the United Nations has defined a total of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in its Agenda 2030, which are intended to ensure sustainable development in a global context. Since the SDGs cannot be achieved within a national framework, international and transnational cooperation is necessary.

In this context, our project SHARKS (“Sustainability Heroes And Restless Knights in Schools”) brings together pupils and teachers from six countries all around Europe, namely Luxembourg, Poland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the Northern Republic of Macedonia. Part of our project idea is that every partner has own strengths, experiences and possible solutions regarding the different SDGs.

By dealing with the various SDGs, the pupils are to be informed about the current sustainability problems and consequently be strengthened in their ability to act, so that the pupils can make scientifically sound, morally and ethically balanced, consensual and self-responsible actions for their current and future way of life. The ultimate goal here is to enable students to satisfy their own basic needs without compromising the opportunities of future generations. In addition, we want to achieve the following objectives:
– Promote the exchange of good practices of sustainable actions in schools using etwinning.
– Disseminate the results of the project through different platforms (Twinspace) and make the impact of the actions carried out sustainable over time.
– Promote the development of our school’s internationalization and raise awareness regarding the importance of sustainable development in our educational institutions.
– Pupils learn to adopt different perspectives, to develop empathy for different views and opinions and thereby to reach consensus, democratic decisions and results.
– Since the sustainability problem is a global challenge, only transnational efforts are considered promising. The pupils are made aware of and prepared for this by the approach we have chosen.

The expected results of the project are many and vary from a methodological point of view and are particularly oriented towards the possibilities of the modern media since they also play a crucial role in the global discussion about sustainability. Examples are the creation of YouTube videos, logos, e-guides, animations, comics, or posters.

By participating in this project, students will:
– be better prepared to build a more sustainable future regarding ecology, economy, society and politics
– improve their motivation, self-confidence and academic performance and class behaviour
– increase their social skills through transnational cultural teamwork requiring tolerance, cooperation, empathy for others and problem-solving skills
– enhance ICT skills as they will use various ICT tools to produce outputs and plenty of collaborative tools to work with other students
– increase language skills in real-life and multilingual contexts. By staying in host families and working with other foreign students
– extend their knowledge of their partner countries’ cultural heritage and geographical diversity thus redefining their identity towards being independent, responsible, tolerant European citizens and becoming higher prepared for future jobs

It is important for us that in particular, the positive examples of the respective partners influence the school life of the fellow partners and, at best, can be adopted. These examples should also be used to achieve a multiplier effect on the environment of the respective partners, e.g. by encouraging parents, relatives, local politicians and local companies to engage in sustainable processes. These effects will be evaluated through surveys in the partner schools at the beginning and end of the project, which will naturally also be published.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 197796 Eur

Project Coordinator

Deutsch Luxemburgisches Schengen Lyzeum & Country: LU

Project Partners

• Colegio San José ss.cc.
• Szkola Podstawowa nr 1 w Leborku
• Escola Secundária Jerónimo Emiliano de Andrade
• i.m.s. Vittoria Colonna
• SUGS Gimnazija Orce Nikolov