Discovering the EU by PLAYing

The consortium of six countries planned and implemented the project which was to answer an urgent need to increase knowledge about EU among young people and increase their will to be active partic...

In the course of the project we wanted address out target groups and to raise the awareness of the importance of European structures, let young people understand its history, its fathers and the beginnings but also to see the core values of the unity in Europe. This let us achieve the main goal – strengthening our EU identity. We also wanted to equip teachers and students with innovative tools helping to educate about EU in a more intriguing way, thus we wanted to create several outputs which could be used worldwide by teachers, educators and learners. The palpable educational materials should help students discover common European heritage and reinforce a sense of belonging to European space. We also aimed at developing general IT skills both among teachers and learners through using interactive activity book, mobile applications and other online resources. Finally hoped to build an international project team capable of cooperating on really high level and preparing high quality content.

The consortium of six countries planned and implemented the project which was to answer an urgent need to increase knowledge about EU among young people and increase their will to be active participants in EU society. Following our studies on the subject we observed that young people have limited understanding of EU history, institutions, values and its influence on our lives. They do not trust EU institutions as the former generation used to. Therefore, we aimed at raising the awareness of the importance of UE and bring back trust in this structure through creating tools which would help teachers and students understand and be active participants of European integration. Another reason for this project to be created was the need to grasp the understanding of Education 4.0 following the developing presence of Industry 4.0. Most teachers feel lost and helpless facing the latest advancement in classroom and learning about the changing world. Our solution was to help understand the changes in education and to prepare the teachers for the future. At the stage of applying, all the participating organisations jointly agreed that these are the most burning issues which need to be addressed.

The concrete outputs of the project were as follows: - Teachers’ Education 4.0 Guide – a 60-page publication for teachers giving the outline of modern and future needs the school will demand in connection with Industry 4.0 - The EU Play Interactive Book including a textbook and activity book presenting the history, the presence, values and ambitions of EU - The EUPlay Treasure Hunt Game which is a mobile phone application which helps students discover and engage with European cultural heritage, geography, music, films and trivia - The EUPlay learning platform which gathers all the results now available in one space online - 4 Newsletters informing our respective societies about the scope of work and the advances of the project - all the above Results were translated into all partners’ languages and available both in English and in native lg versions. Among other results we can outline the following - Teachers enlarged their professional potential and students opened to new ideas about EU. All stakeholders broadened perspective on what EU really is and developed several soft skills like cooperating with other professionals, experiencing new places and culture. - Teachers strengthened their professional profile