Together with nature Erasmus Project

Project Title

Together with nature

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 : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Environment and climate change; Natural sciences

Project Summary

The realized project was focused on environmental issues, the protection of nature and equally promoted the international cooperation and the development of communication skills in a foreign language. The main content of the project was focused on the national parks available near the both participating schools. We chose the Giant Mountains National Park (KRNAP) in the Czech Republic and the NP Snowdonia in the UK. During the project we watched and evaluated four areas of interest, the first three have been associated to the assessed national parks and the fourth area was aimed to compare the ecological operation of school buildings of both participating schools. The monitored areas were:
1. The national park nearby – its characteristics, history, geological and geographical conditions, methods of conservation.
2. Coexistence of a man and nature in the national park. Searching for a compromise between an environmental protection and living conditions of people.
3. Protected species of plants and animals in the compared parks, occurrence of endemites and other unique phenomena – searching, observation and identification of natural items directly in the field.
4.Ecological footprint of our school. The characteristics of an ecological operation of my school. Comparison of the situation in both schools. A modern building versus 90 years old building.
The realization was ensured on both sides of the project by teams that were consisted of school pupils and teachers. During the implementation of the project we organized two international workshops of involved teachers. The first took place in November 2017 in Liverpool and the second in May 2019 in Trutnov.
Pupils’ work on the project was launched at the end of 2017, when the two schools formed a group of students and teachers who started to deal with individual topics. The work took place not only individually in both schools but also in the form of electronic communication – e-mail, Skype. Gradually, pupils gathered information and material and, using the websites of both national parks, learned about the landscape. The original plan of the project was to use the E-Twinning platform for both communication and sharing of ongoing information. However, as we faced difficulties during this phase in the ability to reconcile the individual work meetings of the pupils of both schools, we preferred to communicate via e-mail or via Skype or different chats. In the context of increasing knowledge of the territory and functioning of the Giant Mountains National Park a discussion was held for a group of Czech pupils, first in March 2018 and then in June with a field trip to the Giant Mountains National Park. Similarly, pupils from the English school got acquainted with the nature of Snowdonia NP, although the excursion to the area took place later. For October 2018 a short exchange visit to the UK was prepared, which thanks to the cooperation with the KRNAP staff was planned so that we could first make a continuous three-day visit to Snowdonia NP (the starting point in the Plas Tan y Bwlch) and then we travelled to Liverpool, where we could work together with an English partner on partial outputs, sorting and processing photos of other materials. During the stay, we also organized a conference where individual pupil groups presented the information and materials they had gathered so far on particular topics. During their stay in Liverpool, the pupils were accommodated in families, which significantly contributed to learning about the way of life and cultural habits of the people of Great Britain. Staying in the natural language environment also brought a direct confrontation of the current knowledge of English and could become a significant motivation for its further development. In the next stage of implementation, the pupils of both schools worked on the sorting of materials and preparation of documents for the outputs, which were:
An exhibition of photographs from both national parks, a wall calendar, a paper information folder and three wall information panels.
The first of the outputs, the exhibition of photographs, was realized as a part of a short exchange stay of English pupils in the Czech Republic in October 2019, when LHS pupils also visited KRNAP, gained new information and together they participated in the elaboration of the environmental impact assessment of the operation of both partners’ school buildings. At the end of 2019, the remaining effort was devoted into the particular implementation of all planned outputs. It can be stated that we managed to achieve all the essential project goals together during the project implementation. The outputs were spread on both sides not only towards the participants, the schools or families, but also towards the wider public. The project fulfilled the goals of professional, language and international cooperation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 52380 Eur

Project Coordinator

Gymnazium, Trutnov, Jiraskovo namestí 325 & Country: CZ

Project Partners

• Litherland High School