When examining the needs of our students, we noticed deficits within the broadly understood area of cultural heritage. With the aim of solving this problem, we came up with the initiative of the project which is inspired by the European Year of Cultural Heritage. After diagnosing the needs of our students, we started looking for schools of partners with similar problems. We defined the project goals that were consistent for each school: - raising the awareness of young people about the cultural heritage of their country and other countries taking part in the project - creating awareness that protects the common heritage of the world - making students aware that cultural heritage is a strategic element for achieving a united Europe that guarantees peace, security and freedom - contributing to inter-cultural dialogue and cooperation - promoting openness, tolerance and respect for diversity by educating the project participants to establish and maintain contacts with representatives of other cultures - stimulating responsible citizenship - improving language skills of teaching staff and students - showing the participants of the project the necessity of improving their English language proficiency in order to communicate freely and increase their opportunities on the labour markets of other countries - use of new IT tools in teaching and international cooperation (Edmodo / Skype / Kahoot / Padlet) - strengthening the European dimension of the school through the cooperation of international schools - skills in discussion and debate - counteracting stereotypical thinking Successful implementation of these goals will bring concrete and measurable results and will solve the problems identified in our institutions. We want to help project participants become conscious citizens of the European Union through their implementation. During the process of project implementation, language competency shaped by frequent and natural communication situations, will also increase. Another notable need in times of universal digitization, is developing the competencies of students and, especially teachers, in the field of IT. Therefore, program participants, both young people and school staff will use modern technologies in the project work related to learning about cultural heritage. Visiting historical places, analysing photos of places related to the history and culture of individual countries, and processing them in various applications will broaden students' knowledge, historically, linguistically and in their use of IT. Virtual and live tours will refer to the history and culture of our countries. Workshops on preparing regional dishes, presentations on the Mediterranean diet, as well as a festival of song, dance and music, will allow students to observe cultural diversity. An element of cultural heritage that will be proposed to students will also be a craft lesson (pottery). Visits to interactive museums will present the story in an accessible and attractive way. A Skype club will be created, which will improve students' communication skills and open their class to the world. A project website will be created, which will be the journal of the project events. By implementing the project's goals, we will organize on-line project meetings. Teachers will be able to freely use tools that are attractive to their students, and thus increase their motivation to learn. Using English in all project works, creating materials, presentations and communication will definitely result in a more efficient command of the language. Students aged 15-17 will be involved in the project. Various school community groups, teachers, pupils, parents, school staff and, indirectly, representatives of local authorities will participate in the project. The project will cover several hundred students and teachers among the community of five schools - participants of the project, who will be the main recipients of our project. Teachers of different specialisations will be involved : history, art, culture, national languages , English and Latin language teachers and IT professionals. Participation in the project will definitely contribute to the development of the schools involved in the long-term perspective. Both teachers and students will acquire new skills such as communication and presentation skills, decision making, problem solving and conflict management, creativity, teamwork and solidarity. Project participants will become Europeans aware of their cultural heritage. The sense of personal development and achievement will lead to increased motivation and satisfaction. We will actively use the results of the project after its completion, introducing the subject of cultural heritage to the curriculum in our schools, which will ensure the use of the projects results in the long term.

"Ready for innovative teaching?""If a child can't learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn"": This quote from Ignacio Estrada motivated us to think about the topic. Developing basic skills and new methodologies is currently a great discussion among teachers. New curricula have been established but there is no magic recipe how to use more effective teaching methods. Comparing needs, learning by doing and experiencing teaching methods with teachers from different countries all over Europe and across various subjects has helped to discover innovative methods and also to broaden the cultural horizon. We wanted to find out more about the students' needs to create a better learning environment. Traditional classroom environments are often not the most appropriate context for the effective learning and development of key competences. The main recommended approach to teaching key competences is through the provision of interactive learning environments in which learners can engage in practical, inquiry-based tasks, which present open-ended problems to be solved through debate, experimentation, exploration and creativity. The performance of students in school has been decreasing over the last decades, especially boys’ results. Therefore, it is obvious that in order to keep up the motivation and improve the efficiency of learning, we have to adapt to the new situation. With this project, we wanted to find out what had to be changed to enhance learning results.Most teachers agree that it is difficult to keep the motivation for teaching up, especially due to the severe changes in society and media consumption of pupils. We all know that teaching and learning should be as technologically innovative as possible. Involving the pedagogical use of ICT and mobile technology can maybe enhance students' digital competence.Six partners from Lithuania, Madeira, Spain, Sweden, Germany and Belgium were involved in this project. This meant that we had a broad range of needs, curricula and teaching methods. As all schools are secondary schools with general education, we have worked with pupils from the age of 14-18 years. According to the aims of the project, we first examined students' needs and expectations and the status quo in our classrooms, compared them to the situation in our partner schools and exchanged ideas of innovative teaching methods. We tried out and evaluated the ideas gathered in order to check how effective they were.During the 6 meetings with pupils and teachers, one in each country, we got information about the host school's everyday life. We assisted and participated in lessons in every school with innovative teaching methods in different subjects. We organized workshops for students and teachers, debated methodology in classroom, and in every meeting we either filmed or kept a lesson plan record of the activities/model lessons in order to share the ideas and outcomes in our project website.During the first meeting in Lithuania, students tried out debate and video-telling methodologies. They had information on how to prepare the logo contest. We also planned and started the project homepage.In our meeting in Portugal we had indoor and outdoor lessons led by pupils and teachers: - volunteer planting activity in the mountains of Madeira island as a way to have a more human, not technological, connection,- outdoor lesson (mainly oriented by pupils) on the theme: it took a whole day and included a visit to the Whale Museum and a 2-hour sail trip- transversal outdoor lessons: visiting Europe’s highest sea cliff, not far from the school, among other sites; the sea surrounding Madeira island, by watching conserved species, by use of sustainable fishing and also whale/dolphin watching. All countries presented their logos and we chose the winning logo for the project.Our meeting in Spain was based on students developing a series of researching activities around Antoni Gaudi's works. We also had a conference on this school's project and language portfolio.During our meeting in Germany, we had a interdisciplinary model lesson on Physical Education in English and workshops in foreign language learning and teaching.Our fifth meeting took place in Sweden. We had workshops and indoor/outdoor activities to promote team building with the goal of learning about culture and the environment, led and planned by pupils, parents and teachers to develop a trust in everyone's own physical ability through an afternoon/evening excursion, downhill skiing, skating, cross country skiing, sledding and dancing. We also had lectures on the Pisa results as well as entrepreneurship. During the meeting in Belgium, we focused on innovative methods and tools in science, ICT and language classes, we had workshops on creativity in teaching and the students presented the outcomes of the previous meetings. All participants visited and learned about the European and DG Parliament."

s our project title states, schools have to face challenges and offer strategies and paths to provide students with alternative viewpoints and attitudes to cope with them. Although all partner countries belong to the European Union and a globalised society and have similar challenges to face, each country chose and worked on the most relevant and urgent challenge for its school, namely: Inclusion in the classroom (Belgium) Awareness and intervention on violence because of gender (Spain) Integration of national minorities (Lithuania) Virtual life taking over real one (Hungary) Respect matters - prevention strategies against cyber-bullying and other conflicts / learning from team work (Portugal) Inclusion of pupils from other islands with different linguistic and cultural background (France, Ile de la Réunion) All the challenges chosen are of social character and belong to civic education and we dealt with them following the basics of strategic planning: Understanding the problem Contextualizing the problem Intervening in the problem. These steps constituted action strategies to reach the main goal of the project: sensibilising, acquiring criteria and positively acting in relation to the social challenges dealt with. By following the methodology of strategic planning, each of these strategic actions were divided into dissemination and educational activities, implementation indicators and impact indicators. As project based learning is widely used and considered effective in education nowadays, this project’s approach can/should be used in partners’ school projects both in curricular subjects and extra-curricular activities. The project's objectives were as follows: 1. Raising awareness in our young people of each social challenge, providing them with an opportunity to develop their understanding and discuss issues affecting their lives in their respective countries and their communities. 2. Providing and acquiring criteria to intervene, through a variety of activities including workshops, case writing projects as well as games, role-plays, discussions, debates and collaborative activities. 3. Positively acting, thus developing and improving the level of key competencies and skills of young people necessary for active and committed citizenship and participation in life of their respective countries.The results accomplished throughout the whole project were the following:- students increased their ability to acknowledge that some individual behavior patterns are the manifestation of deep social issues.- students became aware of these behaviors in their environment as well as of these social issues.- our youth were enabled to propose intervention ways so as to mitigate such unhealthy and destructive patterns in the surrounding social groups.- target groups acquired greater intercultural awareness and appreciation of attitudes and cultures of other European countries- target groups acquired greater knowledge of social challenges other European countries are facing- teachers and students improved their foreign language skills- teachers acquired new strategies, teaching ideas, skills and materials for motivating pupilsAs for the project participants, not only students and teachers who participated in learning/teaching/training activities benefited from the project. About 350 of students, teachers, parents and other people from local communities took part in various project activities and became more aware of the project itself and the issues it dealt with.

In this period of great global climate and environment instability, the role of education within society has never been more important. This brings us to our project theme, which references this vital and significant efforts to be made in both educational systems and the individual students and teachers, as well as the necessary resilience needed to not only survive, but also thrive.As our project title states, schools have to face challenges and offer strategies and paths to provide students with alternative viewpoints and attitudes to cope with them. Although all partner countries belong to the European Union and a globalised society and have similar ecological aspects to face, each country has chosen the most relevant and urgent aspect for its country and for its school respectively. - Energy and resources; Lithuania - Clothing and footwear ; Belgium - Mobility; transport and travel; Quatre Cantons - Food and beverage; Hungary - Sustainable tourism : Greece All the aspects chosen are of social character and belong to civic education and we will deal with them following the basics of strategic planning:Understanding the problemContextualizing the problemIntervening in the problem.These steps constitute action strategies to reach the main goal of the project: sensibilising, acquiring criteria and positively acting in relation to the social challenges dealt with. By following the methodology of strategic planning, each of these strategic actions are divided into dissemination and educational activities, implementation indicators and impact indicators. Therefore, and in spite of dealing with different aspect, the whole project aims at teaching secondary school students to discuss issues affecting the youth in their communities as well as explore, learn and discuss issues related to the practice of civic engagement. It seeks to develop their skills in communication, debating and critical thinking and engage them into interacting with members of each other’s communities through the following possible interventions: workshops, arts, citizen journalism, outdoor learning, etc. It further seeks to create a motivational environment for young people’s interaction and mutual exchange of best practices.The proposed Project's objectives are as follows:• Developing or improving the level of key competencies and skills of young people necessary for active citizenship and participation in life of their respective countries; • Creating an environment conducive of young people’s interaction and mutual exchange of experiences – through a variety of activities including workshops, case writing projects as well as games, role-plays, discussions, debates, collaborative activities, as well as informal interaction in the free time; • Providing young people with an opportunity to discuss issues affecting their lives in their respective countries and their communities as well as to share the best practices of their interests articulation and convincing the policy makers and/or decision-makers in their point of view; • Establish contacts and interact with members of each other’s communities through the following possible interventions• To develop sustainable partnerships and networks which will lead to future cooperation and future projects.