“What’s our Heritage-we are Yourope” Erasmus Project

Project Title

“What’s our Heritage-we are Yourope”

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; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; Creativity and culture

Project Summary

The project “What’s our Heritage-we are Yourope” focused on different aspects of cultural heritage including biosphere reserves in every partner country, gift-giving, and refurbishing things for future generations. The project was done by considering the personal cultural background of the participating pupils to increase their enthusiasm for the project. The cultural history of giving presents to each other was an important part of the project because every human being likes to get presents and it is an important social adhesive of every social community and a topic the pupils are interested in. Pupils got to know about the cultural heritage and biosphere reserves of their own countries as well as their partner countries. It was important to learn what UNESCO exactly does and the criteria which are needed to be met for being listed as a UNESCO world heritage site.
During the project time, pupils learned how sights, paintings, books, cloth, buildings, food, etc. are preserved and/or refurbished for themselves and for further generations. As 2018 was the year of cultural heritage we put stress on this important topic.
The partners worked on the different jubilees 2018 had to offer in their origin countries in individual ways and introduced the results to their partners.
To develop this project, five schools from five different countries teamed up and joined forces. These partners were: NMS Staudingergasse from Vienna, Austria, a small secondary school with about 270 pupils, with 95% of pupils having a non-German speaking background; the Theodor Heuss Schule from Bielefeld, a big secondary school with about 700 pupils; the Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria Sierra Blanca from Marbella, Spain ,a large school with 900 pupils and many international pupils (French and German); Oulu International School, from Oulu, Finland, a public comprehensive school for about 400 pupils from primary through to the end of middle school (7 – 15 year olds) and specialized in an “international education” offered in English; and the Wallace High School from Scotland, UK, a modern Scottish comprehensive school for 11-18 year-olds situated in the heart of historic Stirling with a community of about 900 pupils.
The diversity of these schools working together enhanced the project progress and offered many different points of view for the partners. The activities we planned and the planned results were comprehensive. At the beginning, every partner created an Erasmus corner at school to introduce the project to the school communities. Pupils wrote picture postcards, and the partners were introduced to each other at the first LTT. We created an eTwinning site for uploading project results and documenting the ongoing progress. Pupils prepared for each LTT by learning some important phrases in the host’s language and each LTT dealt with a certain topic according to the project aims. We hosted a competition for the project logo to represent the project and it was printed on T-shirts. The T-shirts were worn during the LTT activities and when representing the project.
The LTT activities included pupils creating a diary where pupils could express their feelings and write down their experiences. The LTT activities were also an exclusive opportunity for pupils to get to know other’s European countries and cultures, to establish friendships all over Europe and to find out that teenagers all over Europe have the same problems, interests, wishes and dreams.
The idea was to reduce barriers in students’ minds to make them more open-minded and tolerant, which they could then transfer into school life and into their families at home. In this way, tolerance and open-mindedness can spread as an Added European Value.
Dissemination activities were also a main topic of the project because we shared our activities not only on eTwinning, but we also contacted and invited local media and informed other schools in the districts and the educational boards about our project. All partners in this project cooperated equally. The project improved the communication skills of all participants.
All participants were encouraged to learn foreign languages. The contacts between pupils and staff from different countries made communication in the English language common and more fluent. Communication through teamwork enhanced interpersonal skills and boosted creativity. Active citizenship was not only a buzz phrase for the participants as they came to understand Europe as a Europe without borders where they can live and work.
The project also broadened participants’ horizons and reduced prejudices. Because of this European idea and spirit, we used the made-up word “Yourope” in the project title to show how everyone is included.
The partner schools also established long-term contacts for future projects and networking. With this project we expected both social and academic impact. It helped our institutions to further develop our European dimension and solidarity.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 148726 Eur

Project Coordinator

NMS Staudingergasse 6, 1200 Wien & Country: AT

Project Partners

• Wallace High School
• Instituto de Enseñanza Secundaria Sierra Blanca
• Theodor-Heuss Schule
• Oulu International School:Oulu Kaupunki