To bee or not to bee? Erasmus Project

Project Title

To bee or not to bee?

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social/environmental responsibility of educational institutions; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Are bees still important in the 21st century? Our project team believes they are. Bees are invaluable in several aspects of our lives, from pollination, to food, cosmetics and medicine. Thus the main priority of this project will be to spread awareness of how important bees are to us and how we can save them.
The United Nations approved Slovenia’s proposal to observe 20th May as World Bee Day. The fact that Slovenia initiated the process should not come as a surprise as beekeeping in Slovenia has a longstanding tradition as well as production of honey and other products. Colourful beehive panels have long found their way into the Slovene folklore, not to mention the Carniolan honey bee. One of the questions this projects aims to answer is how other countries in Europe promote beekeeping and how successful they are in recruiting young and enthusiastic beekeepers. Is the younger generation aware of the importance of bees? In order to get a comprehensive overview, the participants will create a geographical map depicting the population of bees in participating countries as well as honey production and its use.
Through the activities of our project, we will not only want to raise awareness of how important bees as pollinators are for the ecosystem, but also draw attention to the many threats that they face. We will also be looking at possible solutions that could help to slow down or even stop their decline.
Each participant country will be required to actively promote the importance of bees throughout the duration of the project and, more importantly, continue to spread awareness that it is our responsibility to protect bees even after the project has concluded.
There will be five learning, teaching, training activities throughout the project. Each activity will be organised by one of the participating countries.
The first activity will be dedicated to the tradition of beekeeping in various countries. We will learn more about the roles bees have within a bee family. Furthermore, we will be interested to learn if younger generations are still interested in beekeeping. What can beekeepers do to attract younger people to try their hand at beekeeping? The meeting will be held in October 2019 in Slovenia.
The second activity will discuss all the various threats and perils that bees face daily. We will attempt to answer a simple question: Can our planet survive without bees? We believe that the extinction of bees will have devastating consequences for our ecosystem. The meeting will take place in April 2020 in Portugal.
All through the third activity, we will look into some possible suggestions and solutions on what we can do to help the bees to survive. The project team is convinced that there are many activities that schools can carry out to actively help bees to survive. The main goal of this meeting is to make a flower bed and encourage other school to follow our suit. The meeting will be hosted by Poland and take place in October 2020.
The fourth meeting will be even more creative as we will try out hand at making products out of wax and other bee products. We will also explore if and how we can use honey in cooking. Each participant country will contribute some recipes that will be published in a recipe book. We will also prepare some dishes. The meeting will be held in March 2021 in Romania.
The last activity will take place in Croatia in June 2021. It will serve as a wrap up of the project. We will finish the short animated film and screen it for the first time. The participants will also set a small exhibition with all the products they have created through the project.
Throughout the duration of the project, the participating partners will be required to actively take part in creating the short animated film. We will start developing it during the first meeting and show the finished cartoon at the last meeting.
In order to illustrate the importance of bees, the project group designed three main intellectual outputs:
a) a recipe book containing dishes using honey as one of the ingredients,
b) an online gallery of illustrations, colourings and paintings illustrating bees, their habitat, but also their major enemies and threats
c) a short animated film that will illustrate the following: the lives and roles of bees in a beehive, bee products and how we can use them in everyday life, the main reasons why bee are so important to the world, why are they endangered and what we can do to protect and help them.
At the end of the project, we expect to meet the following aims and objectives:
• to develop and deepen the awareness of the importance of bees
• to illustrate the use of honey and other bee products
• to actively promote beekeeping, focusing on younger generations
• to come up with suggestions how to motivate younger generations to engage in beekeeping
• to exchange good practices in beekeeping
• to learn about bees’ major threats
• to come up with strategies how we can protect and save the bees.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 121215 Eur

Project Coordinator

Osnovna sola Polhov Gradec & Country: SI

Project Partners

• Srednja skola Hrvatski kralj Zvonimir Krk
• Szkola Podstawowa im. Mikolaja Reja
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Alfândega da Fé
• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA “MIHAI EMINESCU” ROMAN