Background
The 24 months 7 partnership LISTEN Project
L: Learn Climate Change
I: Innovation,Information
S: Science
T: Thinking Critically, Digital Technology, Therapy
E: Ecology,Enjoy
N: Nature Friendly
These keywords constitute our project name as well as summarize the content of our project
The subject and main objectives of our project are related to climate change, environment and increasing digital skills of generation Z. The main intention of the countries and institutions participating in the cooperation partnership project “Listen To The Voice Of Earth” is inspiring our educational environments to adjust our educational system to teaching about climate, environment and about protecting them against the devastating impact of humanity. We apply for the project because we want to work out new methods, techniques of teaching about them as well as check the efficiency of pedagogical methods and techniques used so far in this area.
We are aware of the fact that we must prepare our societies to live in a rapid, risky, challenging future. We have decided to create a project because we also want to develop our teachers’, educators’, students’ digital, language skills and ability to creative and critical thinking. We have decided to cooperate to give our institutions the chance to take part in innovative education experiences and create for our teachers, students the opportunity to develop their personalities, abilities and 21. century skills. According to the data we obtained with the questionnaire; we applied for the Developmental Bipliotherapy PR: 1. 93% of the students have read children’s books on Climate Change and Environmental Protection, and 87% of them stated that they reach these books through their teachers and school libraries. This result clearly shows that the school determines the choice of children’s reading on environmental issues. 71% of the students stated that they read the books by themselves and did not do anything else. The number of students participating in drama workshops, artistic activities and digital activities related to the books related to our subject is 9%. According to this result, the fact that educators and students will be able to use the children’s book workshops prepared with GBT on climate change and environmental protection will affect the quality of learning. While bibliotherapy is used by clinicians for therapeutic purposes, developmental bibliotherapy is used by educators. Through our project, our teachers will be able to use the GBT method.
We want to prepare our school societies to use simple academic methods to examine the topic. The participants will develop digital competences and will use them to find solutions to climate and environmental problems. We strongly believe that it is necessary to make our students not only aware of the environmental and climate changes in the world but also possible ways of solving them.
The particular institutions in the project have various motivations to cooperate with the other partners. The coordinating institution and partners are going to gain new experiences in the field of international cooperation, increase the level of management skills and capacities and transfer good practices to other institutions. The NGOs want to help schools to change the methods used in traditional education to more modern, better for the Z generation.
The schools participating in eTwinning projects want to share their previous experiences. We all want to cooperate in the project, because it is a fantastic opportunity to convince participants that we all have an impact on the environment and we all can protect our world – the Earth before devastation. Due to the changes referring to COVID 19 pandemy the need to be more effective in the field of international digital cooperation is more essential than before.
We hope that changing the ecological attitude of the participants will contribute to the solving of the environmental and climate changes in the future world.
Objectives
First, all of us want to make our institutions feel that we all are part of European family and we share common values. In the context of education we want to popularize positive attitudes, innovative methods and prove that cooperation of different institutions can create benefits for all of them. With the project, new sources will be created. The methodology which will be used requires working together, students, teachers, parents, institutions and other stakeholders. The process will support the soft skills such as team working, sharing responsibilities, respect, voluntarism, sensitivity and empathy. New sources will be prepared for teachers, educators and other relevant stakeholders. Children books about climate and environment will be worked using Developmental Bibliotherapy Techniques. This methods will help us to develop our target group’s personal and mental skills. An interactive educational content will be prepared with examining the current curricula. There will be activities integrated with outdoor elements to be implemented to the learners. This will help especially the low ages, primary school children, to learn the subjects in a more understandable and permanent way.
Students, generation Z and their social environment, will be involved in project activities. In the context of involved institutions we intend to achieve a higher level of institutional development through participation in an international network of partners, sharing our experiences, and participating in common activities. We want to make our institutions more dynamic and flexible. The quality of the teaching in the schools and institutions will increase. We will shape among participating teachers a positive attitude to development of lifelong learning skills through life. After cooperation in the project the participants will present advanced skills.
To achieve the goals we have set up a transnational partnership; Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey. As Erasmus program suggest us to establish the partnership with different type of institution, we involved 4 public schools (Santo Domingo, Spain, Joniskio, Lithuania, Yane Sandanski, Bulgaria and Marii Konopnickiej PPS, Poland), 1 private school (Ege University GV Schools, Turkey), 1 private company (Mobile Adventure Poland and 1 art and science center (Yasemin Karakaya BILSEM, Turkey). This variety is important to look at the problems with different sights and create solutions in a multi layered template. With LISTEN project, MOBAD will practice its working capability with schools and gaining more information about the school education field. BILSEM has no experience in Erasmus projects. All partners will support this institution to gain experience. Additionally, schools will add different outdoor elements to the teaching materials. Non formal educational tools are as important as formal ones.
In the context of particular participants we would like to increase the level of students’ critical thinking abilities, digital skills and language fluency. Our institutions will have higher awareness in the field of environment and climate changes, and the possibility to deal with them. The schools, educational institutions will know the newest methods and techniques of teaching, like – informal education, bibliotherapy, outdoor teaching and art therapy and they will use them in the project and everyday work with students. We will have very detailed prepared contents to be implemented and developed.
Step by step, we hope to contribute to global environmental protection. The 24 month LISTEN project has 3 main intellectual outputs, related with climate and digitalization.
PR1:E-Books Created by “Developmental Bibliotherapy” Methodology
PR2:Gamification Based E-Learning Platform
PR3:Interactive Educational Content on Climate Change and Natural Environment
Activities
The origin of the project comes from the eTwinning project. All participants have worked together during planning the logic of the project. Before that we carried out surveys, which main aim was to meet expectations of the students. The project will be implemented in 3 main phases:
1.Preparation to the implementation:
We will create an international coordinators’ team (legal representative and contact person) and the teams in involved institutions (responsible for project implementation in particular institutions) The phase will start from the meetings with local government and authorities to inform them about the main objectives of the project and planned activities and asking them for help in implementation of LISTEN. We will investigate the school curriculums/programs and we will design materials for teachers’ training. In next phase will be conduct trainings for teachers (in the form of examples, practices, documentary, video archives, prepared digital games, interactive learning pages related with this education) how to implement the project successfully. Next we will recruit the students willing to cooperate in international projects. We will use a participation form. We planned 1 TPM ( Kick-off) meeting online.
2.The implementation:
The students and teachers will work during abroad sessions (LTTs in Spain and Poland) and in their own countries. In the countries the modules will be discussed in the lessons with 9-12 years old students. During the realization of the project the training sessions for teachers will be regularly held. During the whole project we will cooperate with pro-ecological NGOs in local. In Modules:
Listen to the voice of Soil-we plan to raise the level of participants’ knowledge about environmental and climate changes, such as: carbon footprints, changes in soil. The participants will use a digital app to enable behavioral changes.They will also investigate the impact of our eating, travel and clothes habits on our natural environment.
Listen to the voice of Air and Water-the participants will continue the investigations in the context of air and water pollution.
Creative recycling studies-together we will try to determine how we can improve the situation. The participants will create proegological inventions.
Clean energy-partners will increase the knowledge about renewable sources of energy. We will create inventions to make clean energy more popular in our cities, communities.
Future professions, volunteer work-the members of the project will think about the changes in the job market caused by environment and climate changes in the context of their future choices.
In all modules we will try to determine the situation in partners’ countries. The activities in the implementation phase will develop teachers’ and students’ digital skills. In each module the activities connected with creating the intellectual outputs and the other results of the project will be carried out – we will read children’s books about the environment and climate and conduct workshops for students based on them. Next, 2 similar books will be written by consortium researchers.
Apart from working in the countries we will meet during:
TPM meetings- 2 representatives from each institution
Multiplier events – 2 ME and 20 participants will attend each meeting in each institution
LTT meetings – 2 meetings will be organised (2 teachers and 4 students from each country will participate in each LTT). The selection of the students/teachers will take into account equal access to mobilities for men and women as well for participants suffering from various kinds of obstacles (financial, geographic). The participants before the mobility will use professional psychological counselling.
3.The dissemination of the results will be done in various ways. We will present the results during the dissemination materials, parent meetings, social accounts and parents-school organizations “The measurement and evaluation activities.
Impact
The outputs of the project will be created by all partners according to their own competences. The results of the “Listen To The Voice Of Earth” will be available in five language versions: English, Polish, Turkish, Bulgarian, Spanish and Lithuanian version. All of the results will be uploaded to Erasmus+ Project Results platform.
1. The resources to implement teachers’ trainings and to prepare teachers to implementation of the project (plans of trainings, examples, practices, documentary, video archives, prepared digital games, interactive learning pages, tests will be used in the project)
2. Five qualified children’s books will be translated into 6 languages to use in the workshops with students. The materials based on the booklets will be designed to be used by teachers during bibliotherapy and drama workshops.
3. Then 2 booklets with ecological stories will be written consortium researchers and published digitally and in printed version (limited edition). They will contain topics from 3 modules. Each booklet will be published at the end of the school year.
4. The e-books will be created in 3 versions; kindle, e-book, i-book with clear instructions for students how to use.
5. The games and application referring to the topic of the project will be created by students and share to common using,
The project will have a strong impact on all stakeholders, the schools, the teachers and the students. All of us will acquire European values and culture awareness. Thanks to the project we will popularize a positive attitude to education and the habit of lifelong learning. The participants (all of them) will develop digital and language competences. They will gain a wider level of knowledge about climate and environmental problems in today’s world, they will also become more aware of positive and negative habits and their impact on our planet. By implementing the project we will contribute to changing attitudes to climate and environment problems.
The teachers involved in the project will enrich their competences in many fields: international cooperation, creating plans, updating skills, they will become more flexible and dynamic. The students will increase their ability to find solutions of the ecology problems and they will be more aware of the impact of climate and environment changes on the future. All soft results mentioned above will have a huge impact on schools and local societies. The project will be promoted in as many ways as possible:
In carrying out project activities, the following methods and tools will be used:
-the meetings for local authorities and cooperating institutions
-the promotion campaign in local cities, communities
-promotion campaign in the Internet (project website, blog)
-the broadcasts in local TV, radio
-the articles about project in local press
-the events in the school for parents, teachers and students
-the meetings with teachers in another schools
-seminars (multiplier events) in each partner country
-preparation of dissemination plan
-preparation, reproduction and distribution of dissemination materials
The web portal will have the links to the project partners’ web sites and will be continuously updated after the end of the project. The project partners will carry out informing activities within their own institutions.
LTT in Spain of the meeting to be held in Spain (LTT) is to teach the use of creative writing techniques to teachers and student groups. LTT in Poland will popularize the use of “clean energy” to protect our natural environment and to show students how we can use it in everyday life. The students and the teachers during the mobility in Poland will increase the level of knowledge about renewable sources of energy.
The project’s goals, methodology, structure, intellectual outputs, partnership and sustainability is designed to contribute to the Europe 2030 strategy (Towards a sustainable Europe by 2030).
