UNESCO – From the Mur to the Guadalquivir Erasmus Project

Project Title

UNESCO – From the Mur to the Guadalquivir

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; Cooperation between educational institutions and business; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

The project was about working on different UNESCO related topics with students from another country. Through this collaboration the participants could develop and improve key competences like cooperative learning, organisational skills, critical thinking, responsibility and self esteem. It furthermore broadened their knowledge about the topics that were worked on.
Additionally, the collaboration with the partner school involved improving their language and networking skills. The established relationships hopefully last a life time.
The 17 sustainable development goals by the UNESCO offered many different interesting topics to be discussed in class.
We discussed them in classes like History, Biology and Spanish and German as foreign languages with the partner school, because it fits in the curricula and it was easy to foster language learning.
Especially in Biology students worked on environmental issues such as energy consumption, climate change, water shortage and climate protection. The students in both schools came up with ideas what to do in order to stop climate change.
In History the main emphasis of the collaboration was put on the discussion of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage. Why are these areas so important? What are the essential differences between the areas that are part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in Austria and the ones in Spain? Which other cultures have influenced the development of these countries?
These questions were also discussed in the foreign language classes so that the students learned more about the culture of the other country.
The project was further expanded on the subject Art, where the students worked on the design for a project related board game.
As the collaboration was between a bilingual German school in Seville and a school in Knittelfeld, in which Spanish is taught as a main subject, the project languages were German and Spanish.
The participants of both schools were students, attending the 10th grade in the school year 2018/19. The highlight of the project was the time spent with the students from the respective other country. The Austrian students could not take the trip to Seville due to coronavirus. The participants of the trip to Knittelfeld were the 10th graders attending the bilingual German form of IES San Isidoro in Seville.
The main goals of the journey were visiting areas that are part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage and the improvement of the students’ language skills.
Moreover, the students got the opportunity to be part of another culture. Through this experience they could truly understand the benefits of being a European citizen.
The skills, the students acquired throughout the project, can be useful in their later lives and through the close contact to students of another country, they got rid of their fear of speaking in another language and got more confident.
The UNESCO related topics were discussed in class. The participants, for example, prepared presentations about places that are part of the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage in their area in foreign language classes.
Furthermore, they prepared activities for the students of the other school.
During and after the project results were presented to other students, parents and teachers at open days, the Erasmusdays and other school events.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 53522,86 Eur

Project Coordinator

BG/BRG Knittelfeld & Country: AT

Project Partners

• IES San Isidoro