Searching Ecological Alternatives of Life

SEAL partners believed it was crucial that the young people understood their actions and larger mechanisms that pollute the earth and everybody had to take responsibility in order to reduce pollution and even prevent it. In SEAL, schools were actively encouraged to focus on environmental problems, conduct campaigns for the preservation and restoration of the nature and develop long-lasting solutions. SEAL provided participants with environmental knowledge and equipped them with sustainable green skills necessary for their daily lives. Students were exposed to real life cases to better acquire environmental learning. Teachers were trained to teach environmental topics using non-formal and experiential methodology. The overall aim of SEAL project was to bring a social learning approach into education in which students and teachers would learn, understand and interpret the world around them. This was realized through experiential learning workshops, educational and cultural visits, seminars, sport events and youth campaigns for environment to raise awareness of sustainable ways of recycling, finding new energy sources and gain an understanding about a more sustainable environment.

SEAL project was designed to serve for the visions of European Environment Policy for 2020, ‘Towards a greener and more sustainable Europe’ and set its project objectives in line: 1. protect, conserve and enhance the nature, 2. turn into eco-schools which are resource-efficient, green and adopts low-carbon school practices, 3. safeguard students and teachers from environment-related risks to health and wellbeing. SEAL also supported ‘Environmental and Climate Goals’ of Erasmus+ program, which declared projects aiming to “support awareness-raising about environmental and climate-change challenges”, would be prioritized. SEAL project aimed to prepare students to “become true factors of change (e.g. save resources, reduce energy use and waste, compensate carbon footprint emissions) and cover education and sport activities to enable changes for consumption habits and lifestyles” SEAL also established circumstances in which project participants would develop their cultural, social, innovative, multilingual and ICT skills and improve knowledge of respect and responsibility for others.

SEAL project implemented local, virtual and transnational activities to reach project objectives. These were: 1. Exchanges of teachers, students and youth workers, 2. Trainer Training Course and in-service teacher trainings, 3. Evaluation and increase of ecology levels of SEAL partner schools, 4. Seminars, Workshops, Micro-Teaching Sessions, Educational Visits and Volunteering Actions on Environmental Topics, 5. Outdoor Sporting Events, 6. eTwinning project of SEAL.

The SEAL project produced: 1. 2 e-books and a Web Page, 2. Ecology Level Evaluation tool, 3. Posters, Brochures, Greenspaces, Project Corners, 4. Surveys, Researches, Lesson and Task Plans, 5. Reports, Videos, Campaigns, Posters, Poems, Brochures and Phone App plans. SEAL had an impact to improve: 1. Transfer of best environmental education methodologies, 2. Ecology Levels of schools, 3. Participants’ green, digital, intercultural, foreign language, civic and project management skills, 4. Teachers’ professional skills at partner schools.