The planet needs you-facts, activities and hope
Our group has decided to organize an environment and climate protection-project. This has several reasons. First this is a global issue; therefore it is important to work together on an European level. Because of that we should promote the exchange between students of different nationalities and encourage them to work together on this environmental problem, which concerns all of us. Secondly, this topic is especially popular between people of young age and many of them demand political change. Thus, we regard this issue to be more suitable for our project than other topics.
Furthermore, this subject is also connected to the project which we did before with the title “Immigration- there’s no going back”. we discussed various reasons for immigration of which one is the climate change. More of our topics can be associated to this context such as “Common values, civic engagement and participation” and “International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation”.
We will compare how climate change effects students and people in different locations in Europe and how our students can help to address the global problem of climate change with various opportunities in the different locations. During the project there will be a group of 32 travelling students and 32 hosting students between the age of 13 and 16 at each involved school who are enabled to not only take part in the project but also at the short term exchanges. At each school there is a group of between 3 to 6 teachers who are involved in the project and also other staff who lead different workshops depending on the planned activities.
In the individual schools, the teaching staff is regularly informed about the status of the work in the project. Parents are also involved. They take part in parents’ evenings and are involved as well as they will be hosting students. The region and surroundings and local participants of each school also take part in the project.
All the activities will be done in transnational groups. We have planned a three-step process. First of all, we want to go into the actually visible changes in the respective regions. To this end, we have already agreed to cooperations in Hövelhof with the Biological Station Senne, in Friedberg with the universitiy of Augsburg and in Catalonia with the Parcs naturals de Catalunya. There are similar cooperations in Iceland and Denmark. Secondly, we plan to look at existing examples of good climate policy and alternative energies in the regions. In Friedberg we look at the FC Augsburg football stadium as the first climate-neutral stadium in the world. In Iceland we visit Hellisheidi Power Station (geothermal power plant) and in Hövelhof a wind farm as examples of alternative forms of energy. By visits and guided tours with external partners we will develop competences in various sustainability-relevant sectors. By carrying out different kinds of research (Alpes, glaciers Iceland) we develop skills and strategies so that all participants will become true factors of change. In Spain we will get to know the development of environmental policy in the Barcelona area and in Denmark the visit of VELUX gives us an insight how to deal responsibly with natural resources in the production (see Annexes).
By various practical workshops (e.g.literature, artwork, manual work) the students will be enabled to reflect on their lifestyle and consumption habits and therefore will have the chance to change their habits. This is our third step, in which the students work out solution-based and production-oriented approaches.
We are going to create a website where we upload all our results to see for everyone who is interested in it. We also want to publish our results in the TwinSpace. With our project we are raising awareness about environmental and climate-change challenges. A variety of methods such as the use of ICT tools, creative workshops, excursions, partner and group work in an international composition are used.
The outcome of the project will be to develop resources in a range of different media and objects and involve the
experiences of external partners. We also want students to reflect on their own behaviour and consent on improvements they could do themselves. The outcomes for each school of all these activities are an e-magazine with all the results of the project, a guidebook with rules to be agreed on what all the students can do at school to protect the environment.
The potential longer term benefit and also the impact envisaged we see in the expansion and consolidation of the
European idea. Our project “The planet needs you- facts, activities and hope” is a perfect example of the meaningfulness of European cooperation, because only together the problem of climate change can be tackled. In the meaning of “Think globally, act locally” our activities are focussed on taking action in our own communities and cities. Planting trees in every country is a symbol of growing hope.
