The ABC of Wonders – knowing our heritage Erasmus Project

Project Title

The ABC of Wonders – knowing our heritage

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

“The ABC of Wonders – knowing our heritage” Erasmus+ project resonates with the European Year of Cultural Heritage and it’s slogan “Our heritage: where the past meets the future” , being based on the UNESCO cultural heritage of the six European partner countries involved. Through the activities planned for this project we would like to offer our students the possibility to learn more about the local, regional, national and European history, culture and environment from living sources. We will combine the knowledge they gained from subjects like: History, History of Culture, Geography, Biology, Natural Sciences, Foreign Languages, Informatics/ICT, Language and Literature, Art, Music, Religion and European Studies, with technological tools like: web 2.0 tools, educational platforms and educational apps, in order to provide a valuable learning environment, socially active classrooms, group work and collaborative learning activities, interactive and digital lessons.

We would like to facilitate our students the opportunity to meet and interact personally/face-to-face with their European colleagues, to work together in international groups, to search for more information about the tangible and intangible culture and natural heritage of the partner countries on site, through learning, teaching, training activities. This way they can benefit more from the learning process by Experiential Learning through concrete experiences, observation and reflection or active experimentation and by Sensory Stimulation Learning through the use of their five senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). Thereby, we can help our students to create a linkage between virtual learning and real experiences, conducive to a more attractive learning process. By this, they would have a complete understanding of the cultural heritage, of the similarities and differences among nations and would feel more attracted to the learning process.

The objectives of our project:
O1: to foster our pupils’ interest in the cultural heritage of the partner countries involved by guiding them to collaborate, investigate, reflect on and share their research, during the duration of the project and to become more aware of European values;
O2: to acquire and develop digital skills and competences by turning the information gathered during each learning activity into digital material, using technological tools like: web 2.0 tools, wikies, educational platforms and educational apps;
O3: to contribute with digital materials (e-books, videos, presentations, cultural heritage themed games etc.) and innovative pedagogical tools (cross-curricular IWB lessons) to the educational process of each partner school and not only.

The six partners involved in the project are all public schools that provide general education (secondary level):
– Scoala Gimnaziala ‘Octavian Goga’ Baia Mare, Romania;
– Varvakeio Model Gymnasium (Lower Secondary School), Ψυχικό, Αθήνα (Psychiko, Athina), Greece;
– Seyitaliler Atatürk Ortaokulu, KOCAELİ/Kandıra, Turkey;
– ICS Pestalozzi-Cavour, Palermo, Italy;
– Rimaskóli, Reykjavík, Iceland’
– Escola Básica e Secundária Dr. ngelo Augusto da Silva, Funchal, Portugal.

At the beginning of the project and at the end of the first year of the project, the six coordinators and the headmasters/principles or other teachers from the project teams, from each school, will be involved in transnational meetings, where they will discuss about the project activities, will prepare a set of common guidelines for all the partners, will monitor and evaluate the intermediate results and will discuss about ways of facing any situation or problem that comes up, in order to ensure an effective management and avoid possible crisis and conflicts. The first transnational meeting will be organized in Romania, at the school of the European coordinator, in October 2018, and the second one will be help in Turkey, in June 2019.
Five learning/teaching/training activities will be organized during the 6 months of the project, as following:
C1 –in Italy – March, 2019
C2 – in Greece – May, 2019
C3 – in Portugal – October, 2019
C4 – in Iceland – March, 2020
C5 – in Romania – May, 2020

All the other activities will be held online, on TwinSpace: creating presentations, creating and voting the logo, creating the e-books and the interactive lessons, etc.

We intend to use further on the materials created during the development of our project (e-books, videos, presentations, cultural heritage themed games, cross-curricular IWB lessons etc.) and integrate them in the school curriculum. We also intend to post them on the website of the project, disseminate them and distribute them for free to other interested schools. We will keep the project website operational even after the end of the project, for as long as possible.
The materials created will be also available at each partner’s school library for anyone interested.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 113106,72 Eur

Project Coordinator

SCOALA GIMNAZIALA ‘OCTAVIAN GOGA’ BAIA MARE & Country: RO

Project Partners

• Rimaskóli
• Varvakeio Model Gymnasium (Lower Secondary School)
• Escola Básica e Secundária Dr. Ângelo Augusto da Silva
• ICS Pestalozzi-Cavour
• Seyitaliler Atatürk Ortaokulu