United in Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

United in Europe

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage

Project Summary

Six schools, located in almost all parts of Europe, decided to collaborate in a project promoting openness towards Europe and some understanding of its political dimension: The European Union. This partnership of six European countries (Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal) increased the feeling of belonging and of European citizenship among the students by offering them a programme revolving around two major aims: on the one hand, discovering European identity and culture with all its facets and, on the other hand, understanding the evolution and function of the EU.
The project integrated collaborative activities to be prepared and documented in our Twinspace but also during the mobilities organised in Italiy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. The two mobilities in Poland and in Germany could not be realised due to the pandemic. Throughout every stage of the project the activities emphasized both our cultural heritage and the European Union.
In order to establish a fundamental knowledge of the role of the EU in Europe and in the life of our students, the activities focused on values and symbols of the EU. Throughout our partnership, we made an e-book about the EU. Moreover, celebrating the Europe Day during our mobility in Ireland showed our participants the importance of the European elections in 2019: a simulation of the elections with slogans and speeches prepared beforehand by every country was the main activity underlining the responsibility of European citizens to participate in the political life in Europe. A visit to the European Parliament in Strasburg was planned for the last mobility in Germany, but it could not be realised due to the pandemic.
In order to reinforce a sense of European belonging it is necessary to know about the countries of our partnership. Thus, we disseminated the cultural heritage of our six countries. These are the topics dealt with: linguistic diversity (French as a common means of communicating and the native languages of the participants: English, Irish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish and Valencian), cultural and geographical diversity, school systems, games and traditional sports, gastronomy. For the two mobilities that were cancelled we had planned the great moments in history and the development of liberty and solidarity in Europe. Apart from PPT and expositions in our schools, we created as well a podcast about the human rights, an e-book with recipes from our six countries and videos advertising our cultural heritage.
As the pandemic prevented us from organising the last two mobilities, we had to finish the project via a virtual meeting. Even though a huge percentage of students and teachers had already left school during the pandemic, almost 100 students and teachers reunited to participate in this last meeting.
Throughout the project, more than 150 students and almost 40 teachers worked together in class and during the four weeks of mobilities to organise collaborative activities. Our Twinspace played a decisive role for our cooperation, communication and documentation of the project results. Moreover, the students wrote a blog on the websites of our schools.
Our pedagogical approach centred on the learner and aimed at an appropriate usage of media and methodologies such as gamification and efficient usage of video. Unfortunately, the simulation of a historical market place in Poland, illustrating the great moments of history and including interactive games, could not be realised.
To measure the impact of the activities on the participants, we used questionnaires before and after the project and after each mobility as well. The results were described in reports. At the end of the project the results of our students in foreign languages were analysed.
At a moment when Europe is undergoing huge changes, our project successfully promoted a sense of belonging to Europe among our students who worked in multinational groups. They have become aware of their common features as European citizens and as well of the topics that concern young people all over Europe today. Apart from that, the project has had a positive impact on our schools and our students as it contributed to the improvement of competences with regard to working in teams (also on transnational levels), of intercultural competences and the usage of media and technology. The teachers had the possibility to exchange good practice and methods, especially in order to teach foreign languages and to increase motivation. Thus, a new and more efficient educational approach could be implemented in our schools, focusing on the European dimension and transnational cooperation. This partnership created links between our schools of which all six of us will still profit in further collaborative projects in the future.

Project Website

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/69990/home

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 165879,98 Eur

Project Coordinator

Tilemannschule Limburg & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Agrupamento de Escolas Miguel Torga
• ITES “DON LUIGI STURZO”
• Zespol Szkol Ogolnoksztalcacych nr 7
• IES Music Martin i Soler
• Colaiste Choilm Tullamore