Youthtopia2020 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Youthtopia2020

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 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Creativity and culture; Social dialogue; EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy

Project Summary

• Context/background of the project;
The project is a logical sequence of our former Erasmus+ project ‘’From different Pasts to a Common Future’’. After focussing on our different pasts we found out that our students had many questions about the European future. What will become of us? Will we still have a job? What will education be like? Will our European future be sustainable for our children? We decided to deal with these important questions in a new project; Youthtopia2020, in which we would come up with a European blueprint for future Europe, constructed bij our students!
• Objectives;
The main objective was for our students to develop basic and transversal skills.To let them see that the acquired knowledge makes sense. We wanted to acquire this goal by dealing with topics that really matter within Europe. Therefore, the main goal was to let the students (with the help of teachers) find solutions for the problems of future Europe. By using new and innovative matters we wanted to fill the gap between theory and the world they live in. Because students all have different capacities, we find it important to differentiate between the students and offer them different products to work on This implied another objective; the involved teachers should be able to work with all these new teaching methods, so during the project we had to train teachers on the job. Furthermore, we wanted to stimulate our students to become more active European citizens, being able to express themselves on a European scale and about topics that really count in future Europe. The communication with peers from other European countries is important in order to become more fluent in using the English language. After two years more than 2500 people will have been involved in this program. We also wanted to develop a consistent partnership with the participating schools. Therefore, each school also had to bring an extra teacher from the lower classes, in order to spread the European project in the different schools. The idea is to keep working together, also after Youthopia2020.

• See 2.1 and 2.2 for the participating organisations;

• Description of undertaken main activities;
In the four meetings we undertook the following activities;
– Information Markets in the hosting schools (instead of the presentations of the Culture Box at the first meeting)
– Informal teachers meetings with other teachers (that did not participate in the project)
– Students made the following products; video tutorials, a real maquette, but also a digital version of the ideal European city, a Wiki page, a glog, and Youtube-clips about the meetings.
– The constitution of Youthtopia 2020, presented at the European Parliament in Strasbourg (See the Manifesto in the Annexes)
– At the end of each meeting, students carried out a dissemination- activity in the local town, such as a flash mob or a dance, handing out leaflets of the project and talking to local inhabitants
– On the job-training for students and teachers (how to work on the digital city, how to prepare a good blog, etc.)
– Expert talks at every meeting
– A cultural activity (such as visiting a museum, a city walk, etc)
– A cultural party in or outside school (parents of host families bring home-made food and participating teachers and students eat and party together)
– At the end of each meeting an evaluation was carried out between participating students and teachers. Purpose; project-evaluations, find points of improvement.
– All products were shared via eTwinning, Facebook, the school websites and information letters within the schools. Also, after each meeting, students prepared a youthopia-corner wthin the school, showing photo’s and outcomes of the Youthopia2020-meetings

• Results and impact attained;
All 4th classes of the Montessori students in The Netherlands (approximately 230 in total) could choose to take part in the special Youthtopia2020- lessons. Also, during the meetings in Bulgaria, France, Spain and The Netherlands, an Information Market was set up in the different schools, where also other students and teachers from the hosting schools could talk to the participating students of Youthtopia2020 and share information about the project. In all hosting countries, local press wrote or transmitted about the project Youthtopia2020.
• If relevant, longer-term benefits.
The participating teachers have aquired new digital didactical tools in the field, such as working with educational games, the use of blogs and vlogs, digital newspaters, etcetera. Also, the students acquired these digital tools. In The Netherlands, Minecraft is now also used in the history lessons, where students learn how to construct a Greek or Roman city (and digitally walk through them). Furthermore, we also continued working together after the meetings. For example, the history teacher from The Netherlands worked together with the Turkish collegues in a special lesson serie about cultural differences.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 132725,23 Eur

Project Coordinator

Zernike College & Country: NL

Project Partners

• ODTU G.V. OZEL NIGDE ORTAOKULU
• COLEGIO SAN JOSÉ
• EZIKOVA GIMNAZIA BERTOLT BRECHT
• lycée marlioz
• Liceo Statale Erasmo da Rotterdam