Young Historians of Europe Erasmus Project

Project Title

Young Historians of 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: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; Creativity and culture; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

Who are we if we don’t know anything about where we come from, about our origins, family, language, and own culture? Understanding who we are is maybe one of life’s biggest questions. Knowing our history, roots, language and culture helps us construct our identity and a sense of belonging and awareness that leads us to realize who we really are and understand more deeply the importance and the richness of the other cultures. As teachers, we must take responsibility for the next generation not just to educate ourselves but to organize ourselves in making our own history and future. The aim of the ‘Young historians of Europe’ is to search, investigate, discover and visit the monuments connect to the town of every European country participating in the project. The project follows throughout the guided tours of the monument the past and the present of the participating countries. Alongside the descriptions of the monuments, the inscriptions, the armorials and the paintings, the project searches for the special features in every place, as they were formed throughout history. Young people often have a limited understanding of heritage and think that ‘It’s not for me’. Helping young people understand the word ‘heritage’ in their own terms is an important first step in getting them involved, Through this project, the students will have the opportunity to exercise their logic and theιr synthetic thinking via communication with places of unique cultural heritage and to form attitudes and behaviours in such a way that it will promote the aesthetics, the culture and the civilization. Moreover, The “Young Historians of Europe” project allowed the students to practice the English language both orally and in a written way in real historical contexts. This is a key feature of our project as it will help the low-income students who may not have the opportunity of visiting English speaking countries and of not having strong language models to support them. Making heritage relevant to the here and now is vital to engaging our students. A focus on cultural identity or the individuals and events that shaped their communities is often appealing, and relating to others can be easy. For example, comparing the lives of teenagers now and a century ago could lead to an interest in the history of fashion, politics or culture. For this reason, we believe that local projects can be connected with global issues concerning young people. During the implementation of the project, we fostered equity and inclusion in education, training, enabled learning quality for all as well as and promote the participation of disadvantaged groups in society, which is a really important and urgent issue nowadays. Also during history/geography and art classes, the pupils re-discovered national culture using traditional methods combined with modern ones: first watching films, documentaries, touristic videos and analyzing them. Then, studying written documents and literary works they worked on their national history, legends and heroes. Quarterly visits to historic places ( museums, churches, memorial places, etc..) gave students the opportunity to enhance their spirit of exploring, curiosity and capacity of analysis. Semestral optional courses and workshops organized: ICT used as a means of developing creativity, specific skills and competencies, helped pupils in the creation of products such as CDs with literature, historic and theatre work, websites, electronic portfolio about monuments and historical remains improved competencies in reading, theatre, cinema, stage crafts, filming, processing information. Pupils acted in plays and/or in short films and therefore used their imagination, talent, competencies and that helped them understand the role they have to play in society as adults. A solid system of values is promoted.
LTT activities We planned to have groups of 2 teachers and 4 students:
C1-This first meeting focuses on the importance of literature as a vehicle for the preservation of cultural heritage in relation to some of the many major issues taking place.
C2-The meeting focuses on how Multimedia technologies have recently created the conditions for a true revolution in the Cultural Heritage domain, particularly in reference to the study, exploitation, and fruition of artistic works.
C3-Festivals of Cartoons ( cartooning cultural monuments most representative of each partner country.) Through the Festival of -cartoon, the students chose the most representative monument of their own country and created a cartoon of that monument helped by Arts teachers.
C4-The meeting focuses on two art: journalism and photography. Taking a picture …create memories” (photography workshop) creation of a digital Brochure with all the pictures collected by the students.
C5 and C6 could not be done due to the pandemic. C7 and C8 were held as virtual meetings.
C7- Virtual mobility in Malta focuses on the importance of films at school. Especially the multimedia classroom is seen here as a space of opportunity, where general terms can be related to the students’ world. The main intention of the study is to show human behaviour as an exciting experience in all its social dimensions, revealing the structure and perspectives of social behaviour.
C8- Virtual mobility in Greece focuses on the question: How do prepare youth for a better future? The future of our remaining heritage will depend largely on the decisions and actions of the present generation of young people who will soon become the leaders and decision-makers of tomorrow, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)

We want young people to build meaningful friendships based on better understanding and responsiveness to different cultures and values. Our aims are achieved through outdoor activities and sports, cultural activities raising both awareness and wellbeing, trips and visits to nature reserves, national parks and other places of natural beauty. The project implements the research–action methodology, thus scientific or explorative activities mixed with big project and dissemination events as well as students’ short-term exchanges. We got involved in a whole range of activities, including socializing with our friends from other countries, trips and visits to museums, galleries and historical sites. Moreover, we involved students and teachers from other schools, parents and local residents, to participate in events such as foreign languages and cultures day, talent shows, food fairs and photo exhibitions. We produced questionnaires, surveys, quizzes, leaflets, posters and brochures, videos, a project website, Facebook and a blog. During dissemination activities in schools, the results and the activities of the project were presented through images and videos. In addition, project exhibitions were organized with photos from each country, brochures, posters. Teachers and students made the presentations related to project meetings for the schools and also for the local communities, articles were written and published in the school papers and local newspapers. Tangible results of the Project are:
-Picture taken in each mobility together with historical information about visited places) and creation of a digital Brochure
– A booklet about Unesco cultural heritage
-Collection and creation of educational materials (e-book and DVD ) with lessons plan prepared.
-Creation of a film/documentary about young exploratory
-A booklet ” Literary and legendary heroes”
-flyers and leaflets;
-a Facebook and Whatsapp project group;
-the logo of the project.
-the website of the project;
The project objectives were implemented in our project by organizing sustainable project activities, sharing the experience and promoting new ways of teaching and learning in non-traditional learning environments. The most important thing that school leaders – administration were actively involved in organizing, implementing and evaluating the project activities, their results and their impact. Multilingualism was promoted during lessons at schools where some subjects might have been partly taught in a foreign.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 150443,09 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTITUTO COMPRENSIVO STATALE LEONARDO DA VINCI & Country: IT

Project Partners

• ATATURK ORTAOKULU
• 3rd Gimnasium of Corfu
• Sacred Heart Minor Seminary
• ESCOLA LA ROUREDA
• Agrupamento de Escolas de Rio Tinto Nº3