The secrets of happiness Erasmus Project

Project Title

The secrets of happiness

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: Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Teaching and learning of foreign languages; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The secrets of happiness

72 students in the age between 14/16 years and five teachers from Denmark and the Netherlands have searched for the secrets of happiness. They have participated in an one week exchange programme – four times in two years – between a public school from each country. The main goal was to develop friendship and understanding of cultural differences and equalness . The students have worked with typical definitions and terms of their own culture and in the end they compared themselves with the others.

The students study excerpts from the “world happiness report 2018” which shows that the two participating countries, the Netherlands and Denmark are among the happiest countries in the world. During the project pupils have examined what the two countries entail. They have learned about the differences and similarities. What makes life in the two countries so “happy”?

We have joined the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 by visiting important monuments and museums. Pupils received a clear picture of the culture and history of the partner country and their own country. What does the two countries make and what makes life in the two countries special? We visited the “Anne Frank House”, and the city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. We went to the open air museum Zaanse schans, to have a look at the life in de Netherlands in former times. In Denmark we visited Kongernes Jelling an learned a lot about the vikings. We went to Odense to visit the birthhouse of Hans Chistian Andersen. We also saw his fairytales in “The Efterling”in the Netherlands. And we visited Kopenhagen with the Amalienborg Palace and dit a beautiful boattrip started at Nyhavn. We visited Legohouse and Legoland, wich belongs to the Danish culture en is also wel known in the Netherlands. And we visited the open air museum in Arhus.

The project has been an outstanding experience for the students concerning their multicultural understanding and gives them a new way of learning and using foreign languages in real life situations by meeting other students from another country. This was a great motivation factor for the students concerning their learning in teaching situations in school, because of the fact that they saw the meaning of using foreign languages in real life situations . By using digital devices we were also able to connect the classroom with the real world and transporte real life situation in to our classroom. The students trained their foreign language skills in German and English.

We produced different products like films the studens intoduced theirselfs to their partner, a newspaper with interviews from the local society, a city tour through the students hometown, we have sent parcels to our partners with typical Danish and Dutch products. We made an own recipe for a “lykke/cake”, and we developed a Dutch-Danish game, which combines cultural, historical and language skills.

Concluding this project, students are more proficient in the foreign languages ​​German and English and have a clear image of two countries and why they are among the top 6 of the happiest countries in the world.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 53340 Eur

Project Coordinator

Het Hooghuis locatie Heesch & Country: NL

Project Partners

• Vinding Skole