ECO, not EGO-our common ecological "handprint"

The partnership decided to take steps with going green, reduce, reuse and recycle waste, to highlight on sustainable households in the context of the participating countries’ landscape policy, bui...

The partnership decided to take steps with going green, reduce, reuse and recycle waste, to highlight on sustainable households in the context of the participating countries’ landscape policy, build up green skills and behavioural habits. It also aimed to support teachers with material to teach about protecting the environment. We were also hoping by joining the European network of Erasmus to gain experience and broaden our horizon. The background of the students is not usual- it also linked us. In the Werkschulheim Felbertal the students are well “protected” from the outside due to their remote location and the nature of a private boarding school. In UAX Aalborg the students are struggling with not being ready yet for further studies, either from academic reasons or the fact that a high percentage of them are immigrants and do not speak Danish. In Creascola, being a private school the students are coming from families with high expectations and the upper-layers of the society. For these reasons, by implementing the project, we wanted to broaden the students’ horizon, leading them on the way to become European citizens and showing that our common path to succed is taking responsibility for our planet Earth.

The activities were implemented locally and internationally by the students, teachers and helped by the families and a lot of stakeholders. Academic part: The 18 months project period was divided in different paths, these paths represented our activities: environment, home, school, community, food, water, waste, sustainable fashion, transportation and career opportunities. The target students were introduced the topics in their schools, then the working period started in groups with researching, creating own student portfolio parts, making presentations, videos, working with the stakeholders in the topic and the final part was to present to their partners in the project meetings their findings and results and make conclusions. We focused on STEM subjects and English, achieving a 6.7% improvement on the project level. Civic engagement: happened locally and in the meetings, organizing activities to raise awareness of the local community for the environmental problems. Evaluation: there was a continuous evaluation of all paths, with online meetings of the coordinator teachers. Supporting teachers: there were recordings of lessons in all 3 schools, creating and sharing lesson plans to create a helping tool for the teachers.

The results were: creating a common website of the project-representing the Handprint Portfolio, a common picture dictionary for the used technical words, a common cookery book using sustainable recipes, a virtual exhibition of the commonly created objects, posters, a study of the questionnaires set in the initial and the final period of the project, the lesson plan collection from all schools designed to the different paths of the project and the carbon footprint calculations for the meetings and the project itself. The experience of working together for a common aim, using a common language is one of the most important results in the students’, teachers’ and the schools’ life. The cultural impact of the project is also important- with online meetings besides the physical ones we could enlarge the circle. Adopting more environmentally friendly practices by the families and management of the 3 schools, promoting sustainable choices and raising awareness to individual actions, daily practices fostering a more eco-conscious community are important achievements of the project. The fact that the 3 schools and the 3 towns were introduced into the European schools’ and societies’ community was an added value of the project.