Students against extinction

Motivation to start a project

 

All hikers can be divided into two categories. The first type is very goal oriented; People with “Point A to Point B” are always quite clear exactly where they are headed and probably have a map, a compass and a stopwatch in their backpacks. Of course, hikers of this type may well admire the view at their previously scheduled rest breaks or at designated scenic overlooks. However, the second type of a hiker has a much more “stop and smell the roses”  attitude. These hikers may never reach their destinations, but are far more likely to wander down unmarked paths and get lost in the poison ivy. These two types also tend to quarrel with each other. There are, obviously, inherent advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

 

Our focus in this project is much more on the journey than on the destination and is full of detours and scenic overlooks.We are trying less to impart a body of facts than to inculcate a way of thinking and a recognition of many ways that project activities can help interpret manmade and natural patterns.

So, when it comes to our project topic, we know that every generation has had its challenge. For the people of the 20th Century, it was two World Wars. For us, in the 21st century, it’s to live sustainably on this Earth. The scale of the environmental problems caused by humans is unprecedented. All of the Earth’s systems are in trouble right now as our Earth is experiencing extreme climate changes. It is getting warmer, weather changes dramatically, animals lose their natural habitats and some of them face the extinction due to new predators which come from other parts of the world. However, solutions do also exist. And those solutions will not only fix the problems, but also will improve the quality of life for us and next generations.

Students in our schools are not indifferent to this phenomena. Therefore, we came up with the idea of implementing a project on the European level which will enable the students of partner schools to understand the importance of these problems and solutions, enrich their personal knowledge and provide them with various types of activities.

We have written this “Students agains Extinction” project in order to make especially the young people aware of the real challenges and the answers that are within reach; in order to equip participants with universal cultural values without neglecting the richness and value of national cultures; in order to raise awareness about their place in nature, what they owe to the past, what is today and how the future will be; in order to give them the confidence that they hold the future in their own hands and to teach that it is up to them not to be held captive by maintaining their dominances over the forces of nature that they control. And that’s why our project should be funded.

However, we know that we will not be able to stop all dangers against nature on this planet but we are quite sure that we will be able to inspire a lot of people with our activities

 

Short summary of the project

 

This short term exchanges of groups of pupils project, “Students against extinction” will last two years.

The partners have been chosen from different types of secondary schools - vocational schools, general schools, public and private schools, from different geographical areas, diversity and colourfulness of their cultures, ways of life, ways of cooperation, school descriptions, experiences through eTwinning and some other partner search platforms as the biodiversity is needed for our project.

Therefore, the partnership consists of the secondary schools from Slovakia as the coordinator and Czech Republic, Latvia, Turkey, Greece, Spain as partners.

We will organise 6 LTT activities/mobilities. Every mobility will be 6 days + 1 day for travel and each school will be host once. There will be at least 4 pupils aged 14-19 years old and 2 responsible teachers from each school.

The project language will be English.
Distribution of the topics, tasks and workshops according to the SWOT analysis during the preparation phase is; Slovakia; History of Beekeeping; Website; Bee Game
Czech Republic; Food, Agriculture and Food Waste; Social media accounts; Living in Erasmus+ world
Latvia; Consumerism and Waste; e-Twinning and video conferences; Effective communication, European Citizenship Greece; Urban Agriculture; Multilingual Dictionary; Natural Disasters and protecting environment
Spain; Recycling and Renewable Sources; Brochures and photo-documentation; Gender issues, discrimination, Human rights, and multilingualism
Turkey; Ecologıcal Awareness and Protecting Environment; Newsletters; Breaking stereotypes

Although all pupils will have equal opportunity to participate in project activities regardless of gender, social or financial situation; selection of participants for mobilities will be done according to the pupils´ works on the project, willingness to participate in activities, host foreign pupils, attitudes, language skills and diligence with a gender balance.

Preparatory sessions before mobility to provide information about tasks, insurance, safety, partners’ culture, etc., and disseminating sessions after mobility will be conducted by contact teachers.

Project objectives are to develop the participants’ general and specific competences in order to widen their perspectives from local to the European sphere, to be more aware of the problems of the nature through the use of beekeeping as a cultural heritage, understand the value of being part of the European continent with a rich history, which will enable them  to understand their similarities and historical connections with each other and to help them transfer their cultural heritages to future generations, to collaborative partnerships, to learn more about ecological awareness, protecting environment, history of civilization, to break down misconceptions of people from other cultures.

Our project will support the social and personal development of participants, work together in a multicultural environment, meet on common grounds in mutual understanding and organize activities to overcome language and culture challenges.

This will improve participants' feelings of self-confidence and the participants will start saying "I can do it now !", which is one of our most expected aims.

The project offers a well defined controllable way for partners to take social issues from the curriculum and apply them    into the running of the school as the strategy of our project is based on “Learning by experimenting”. This process helps students recognize the importance of social issues and take them more seriously in their lives. The tasks consist on  dealing with content knowledge and problem-solving, thinking skills, analysing or evaluation with the help of methods such as meetings, workshops, discussions, sharing of educational materials and experiences, nonformal activities, excursions, competitions, role-plays, surveys, seminers, presentations, creating newsletters, DVDs and eTwinning network activities.

We will produce outputs such as booklets, cups, newsletters, DVDs, posters, T-shirts, flags, notebooks etc. and distribute free of charge. The programme and necessary logos will be emphasised on any kind of activities and materials.

Monitoring and assessment process will concentrate on if the project has reached its objectives and if the outputs are competent and are performed well enough to help us mirror on what extent we have complied with the main objectives of the project, what’s going well and what we should do to change or improve things.

As social networks will be effective multipliers, all partners will register to the eTwinning portal, will effectively use twinspace pages. And the project will be expanded through the use of eTwinning, websites, social media accounts.

With all disseminations, we aim to inform the community so that we will not leave anybody behind either not motivated to participate or not well-informed about the problems of nature.