Connaissance et protection de la mer et de l'espace maritime

Our main needs are to help our students to become critical and responsible European citizens: free of prejudice, responsible for their actions, environmentally aware, active and caring, interculturally connected. We applied this project to develop key skills and competencies in the participants, such as the ability to work in a team, adaptability and the ability to learn and teach interculturally, exchange ideas, practice languages and IT skills. We also have several protected areas and students should be informed about the protection of the environment, as well as the flora and fauna of its country. We are very worried about sustainable development goals, the life of ecosystems, the life underwater and we wish students to be concerned about the sustainable use of the oceans, and to learn about seas and marine resources for green development. Pollution and over-exploitation of our oceans are posing ever-greater problems, such as an acute threat to biodiversity and an increase in plastic waste. Besides industrial fishing and the commercial use of marine resources, climate change is placing marine ecosystems under increased pressure.

This project was mainly created to develop links between four European countries that have the same difficulties with the preservation of the maritime environment. To know our common heritage was the first step of the project, actually, the sea was at first the main resource for market exchange and after that, coastal tourism took an important part of the economy and development: the maritime space was more and more attractive. Students understood this evolution by learning about the history of their territories and discovered that fishing was no longer the only developed activity. That’s why a «blue growth» is absolutely necessary between countries and that’s why students met local environmental associations and public actors of sea preservation in each country. Students learned how to discuss sustainable issues and they compared and shared solutions to protect maritime space.

The activities that were implemented are : - discovering and learning about flora and fauna in each country, - discovering various sea activities that take into account sea preservation, - collecting waste on beaches - sharing data by controlling the quality of water in beaches, rivers - visiting of Oceanographic centre, and seashell museums - visiting rescue centres for turtles - discovering and comparing several maritime wetlands - observing avifauna in protected areas: L´Albufera in Valencia, Le Sillon du Talberg in Paimpol, The Axios Delta in Greece, The Park of Molentargius in Cagliari - meeting institutional authorities (National Navies, Maritime Rescue Services SNSM, Maritime High Schools) that are engaged in sea preservation, sea protection and maritime security. To develop numerical skills, students frequently used the eTwinning platform to post their personal presentations, summaries of their discoveries, and their acquisition of the vocabulary of maritime space. We also created a netboard. Thanks to WhatsApp and IG, the friendship between a lot of students has increased. In each country, students have prepared personal presentations of their city, and also explained what their countries do in order to protect the seas.

During this project, the concrete outputs that were achieved are : - a glossary of maritime terms used in each territory and the translation of the words in five different languages (French, English, Italian, Spanish, Greek) - a written comparison of four different areas that are especially controlled for birds migrations, birds observations and other fauna and flora species. - a multilingual twinspace and a website that present all the work achieved in each mobility - videos of our four mobilities Other results are : - exchanges between students and families during the mobilities (linguistic practice) - a durable friendship between teachers of the four different countries and the hope to work again all together - exchanges between students and local institutions and local citizens about the project and Erasmus projects