The participants from five different European schools contributed to the project through ICT knowleges and experiences.The main aim of the completed project was to make participants (both students and teachers) familiar with the use of technology in the classroom through exchanging good practice examples and explaining the methodology of ICT supported teaching and learning among the partner schools. Our second aim was to prevent students from dropping out of schools too early. Our opinion was that well-performing and up-to-date education and training systems can help to tackle the aforementioned challenges by providing people with the skills required by the labor market. Through teaching better ICT skills and introducing attractive modern tools into learning processes, we aim at improving the quality of education and training, which in return will lead to more engaging and enjoyable lessons and motivated individual-based learning processes that will lead to falling numbers of drop-outs.The technical equipment available in our schools were in the center of our project work. As the leadership, teamwork, reflection, management, presentation, communication and negotiation skills are very important in personal and professional life and are not sufficiently covered in school curriculas, the children and teachers in our project learned new technologies for learning, teaching and communicating so they can participate in the digital world.We tried to merge a wide range of schools with their individual assets, starting with primary and basic schools, pupils between 6 to 13 years old. The project “ From Europe 1010 BC to Europe 2020 PC” took place in five European countries (Estonia, Finland, Poland, Slovenia and Italy) in 2015 - 2018. The objectives were to improve ICT skills in general, but also taking into account intercultural differences. The main focus was on exercising and practicing skills in various situations that will develop the ICT knowledge, language skills, boost confidence, as well as leadership skills and raising the level of understanding and openness for people from other backgrounds.

"""Environmentally Friendly Cranberries and Innovative Tablets"" was an innovative transnational project for the students aged 13 - 16 and teachers from 5 different countries: Latvia (Rigas Igauņu pamatskola), Finland (Kiukaisten yhteiskoulu / Euran yhteiskoulu), Italy (Istituto Comprensivo della Val Nure), Poland (IV Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. I Dywizji Kosciuszkowskiej) and Estonia (Võru Kreutzwaldi Kool). This was a project with the big cultural diversity in which each country brought its different experiences and competences. All the partner schools found the utmost priority to purposefully integrate non-formal learning, ICT and digital devices like smartphones and tablets with the knowledge that our students receive via formal learning. *One of the main objectives of this project was addressing an open and innovative education. Despite the fact that the schools involved in the project ""Cranberries and Tablets"" were situated in different parts of Europe, they had to tackle the same problems with the students concerning the age group 13-16. Our teenagers possess various new digital devices (smart phones, tablets etc.), but they lacked the skills for using them on educational purposes. *The second objective was closely connected with the first one and was addressing underachievement in the basic skills through more effective innovative teaching methods. As cranberries means pure natural environment around us and tablets represent innovative methods of studying, the focus of the project was put on field trips to learning sites outside the school in order to integrate formal and non-formal learning in different subjects (math, science, literacy, art, craft, English, IT). This project met the objectives set by the Erasmus+ Programme. *Specifically, the following objectives were fulfilled: 1. to provide more competence for students and teachers in ICT and to encourage using more ICT tools in everyday learning and teaching process. 2. to arouse students` interest towards basic subjects and achieve better results in them 3. to integrate formal (in classroom) and non-formal (other natural environments) learning 4. to promote teachers` and students` communication, language and cooperation skills at regional and European level 5. to supplement curricula in our school systems 6. to broaden the knowledge of natural and cultural heritage of home country and partner countries in order to learn to recognize and respect similarities and differences. *During the first project year the focus of tasks was on teaching our students how to use to make videos and sound recordings of nature using smartphones or tablets during the field trip. We also focused on teaching our teachers how to use Open Educational Resources (OER). We also organised one field trip with integrating formal and non-formal learning in different subjects (math, science, literacy, art, craft, English, IT) and some pieces of creative writing (poems, tales etc) inspired by nature was produced for eBook. *During the second project year the focus was shifted to rehearsing and performing plays based on environment, videoing the plays and having a video conference. We also organised a Photo Hunt which activities were connected with ICT. * The last year focused on one more field trip. This time we also used smartphones, tablets and ready-made apps in the nature. In the 3rd year more attention was paid to project products. Contributions of new learning resources were uploaded in Open Educational Resources and a multilingual eBook was designed, edited and uploaded in free e-books environment. eBook also contained photos made during the field trips and photos of art-work inspired by the field trips. * During project students´cultural awareness was raised (Kahoot game, learning about partner schools etc), their basic skills were improved by integrating and using innovative methodologies; their transversal skills were enhanced. Teachers professional skills were promoted. Of course the project was important also to improve all participants English language skills and using digital devices in formal and non-formal studying has become part of everyday work. Overall feedback of partners was good - project was interesting, demanded a lot of work, but as a result it made school life more interesting and gave opportunity to integrate IT and non-formal learning into learning process."

"As the title of the project (ROOTS – Return Our Origins Through Sharing) already suggests, we want to return our children to basics, to their origin and to share their knowledge about the past with other children from the European Union. As the Philosopher George Santayana said, ""To know your future you must know your past"". This goes hand in hand with the announcement that the year 2018 is the year of cultural heritage. In the past few years, we observed that children don't care where they came from due to their constant use of modern gadgets, social media. They sometimes live in an imaginary world which has nothing to do with the reality and therefore they lack the knowledge how to cope with different situations, how to communicate with the eldery as if they would lack respect of what their forefathers were, and even some might feel ashamed of its origin as they are new at school, come from another country and are different from the majority in several ways. We want children to respect others because of their roots. In this way social inclusion is encouraged. By knowing their past you are able to set goals for the future.All the students visit primary schools (age of 6 – 14). They take part in different activities according to and adapting their age. Each participating school has a school coordinator and a project team consisting of teachers of different profiles (history teacher, science teacher, technology teacher, art teacher, class teacher, teacher for special needs). At each school such team is responsible for carrying out the tasks.Through both project years, children go outdoors, visit elderly generations and learn about the past, culture (traditional dishes, dances, songs, customs, games, tales) and observe their natural environment. The presentations and learning about one's culture will be carried out on children's meeting ""Sharing the Origins"" in Spain. The exchange of tutorials and carrying out the tasks not only teaches children some new dances or songs etc. about the customs their forefathers had but they also practise a foreign language, develop their digital competence as the tutorials and presentations would be made in films and posted on blogs.The mascot torch travels from one country to another and carries a message with a task related to Olympic games. At the end of the project it reaches Greece where the last meeting with the children is planned. The activities and the results are put on the website and children write a blog reporting about the events at their school. The exchange of tutorials is on the blog. Before the first meeting with children T-shirts, lanyards and posters are printed for all the children taking part at the meeting.One could sumarize the activities and the results in a short way as in our project the topic is returning one's cultural heritage and is extended to:•tangible – monuments, books, clothes, traditional dishes•intangible – dance, song, old games, folk traditions, chants, handmade crafts•natural – observing flora and fauna, water•digital – recordings of tutorials, presentations of dance, cookery books, website, blog.Through the project the cultural heritage is enliven. Furthermore, the Europe 2020 Strategy emphasizes social inclusion. By taking part in the project children learn to respect their origin and the origin of others. The less priviliged children feel more self-confident and it will be easier for them to make friends. They are respected as all are made aware that we are all special, unique and we share common history in the past. Furthermore, we all are one, we belong to one unity - the EU.In addition, through the project work teachers learn about other kinds of didactics, methods that were not carried out at present. Children go on a field work and then pass their knowledge to the others by showing and still developing digital competence.As not only teachers and pupils are involved, the number of people involved in the project is greater. The pupils' relatives, local people with special knowledge, experts have a special role, since they are the source to whom children go and learn. About 3,000 people directly and indirectly participate.The competences developed in this project are also supported by the European comission: languages, cultural awerness, digital competence, civic competence, personal and social competence, learning competence since children learn about their heritage, use different language, present their gained knowledge through digital media, meet new people. All this contributes to the personal growth of students, teachers, parents, local people and other experts involved."

<< Background >>The title of the project is GREEN CROSSROADS. It has to be seen in relation to the ROOTS project where we worked on cultural heritage and traditions. Now, with the information and knowledge gained from the past generations, we are looking ahead, in a crossroad, trying to figure out the right path to follow in the future. Our project aims to explore and choose the right green path and thus support actions of a sustainable future for our planet, also by transporting the knowledge we gained, as fluids, from the ROOTS project, to these actions. One common problem we all are facing is the danger of climate change which happens right in front of our eyes. Winter holidays mean no skiing; Spring without certain bugs and plants; Summer's heatwaves and indian summers are taking over the autumns; floods and tropical style of rains are occurring frequently. All this touches us deeply and it worries us a lot. The second very concrete problem is the huge production of waste at schools. Especially the use of plastics puts our environment at risk since we need precious resources for its production such as fossil feedstocks, water and energy. Even though most of our partner schools have very efficient tools and ways of recycling, we still have to dig deeper and start planning ways of preventing the waste not to even form in the first place.Another problem is the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is disappearing as a result of unsustainable human activities and slowing down biodiversity loss is one of humanity's great challenges. The alteration and destruction of habitats puts thousands of species in danger of extinction. An example is the decrease of the pollinator populations in Europe. After considering together all these facts we agreed that we as human beings are the ones to blame and so we are the ones that have to start cleaning up this horrible mess we have made. We as schools of the future have to dramatically change our way of living and adapt green habits. We can't just react to change but we also need to take a proactive role in building the future, since schools have an important role in defining what kind of future they should be involved in constructing.<< Objectives >>Based on the above and in accordance to the Green Deal priorities we want: 1. To transform our schools to zero-waste schools by reducing, reusing and recycling for a toxic free environment. 2. To adopt green habits that reduce disposable products and promote organic farming. 3. To reduce energy consumption and implement a wiser water management at our schools. 4. To test, evaluate, adopt or adapt methods of the past and present generations for a sustainable use of the land and of the physical materials (wood, metal etc.). 5. To adopt practices that preserve and restore biodiversity in urban and agricultural spaces (depending on the physical environment of each participant’s school).6. To find methods and means to motivate and inspire learners as well as teachers to begin the path towards a more sustainable way of life. The STEM approach and the ideas from outdoor learning and positive pedagogy are studied in more detail.7. To support the skills of teachers in active use and implementation of environmental topics into daily teaching.8. To produce a toolkit on climate change and environmental education including theoretical background, innovative teaching resources, worksheets and links to good practices.<< Implementation >>All the six partner schools are active and innovative primary schools with students aged from 3 to 15. The students take part in different activities according to their age and capability. Each participating school has a school coordinator and a project team consisting of teachers form different profiles, and in each school the team is responsible for carrying out the tasks. Most of the activities and products are defined by different keywords related to climate change. These are topics such as* reduce, reuse and recycle* energy consumption* water* paper* wood* land* animals* bees* waste * plastics* wool* herbs* fabricMany of the activities are carried out inside and outside, which means that new teaching approaches including positive pedagogy, outdoor learning and STEM approach e.g. project, inquiry, art base learning, experiment based learning are used as we will observe different ecosystems, build a garden, a beehouse, visit waste plants, apiary, libraries, take photos of nature in the hometown, counting and measuring the waste produced in the classroom, in the school canteen, comparing the results, making different presentations, organising displays about the work, photo display, making recycled products for the bazaar, clothes exchange etc. Through this digital competence is also developed. The mascot, project hedgehog travels from one school to another, investigates the ecological state and new ideas in each country and collects different objects made of different recycled materials for its town. In the last meeting in Poland all the schools' hedgehogs join in a town built out of recycled material at the children's meeting there. When the hedgehog visits the school, it writes a blog about its visit and looks for good and bad examples of treating the environment.Other activities such as buying products with less plastic packing, and using, creating and promoting multi-purpose products to the school and local community, support a green lifestyle. By using STEM as well as the combination of outdoor learning and positive pedagogy we bring new methods to lessons which inspires not only learners but also teachers to develop professionally. Using foreign language is another advantage.<< Results >>By taking part in the project children's awareness for taking care of the environment is raised. Furthermore, their actions are brought into the local communities and many of the goals are achieved with their cooperation. The pupils' relatives, the locals and the experts have a special role. They are the source of which the children learn from. And in this way, sustainability of actions is promoted, since altogether around 3,000 people participate in our project either directly or indirectly. The competences developed in this project are supported by European comission:languages, cultural awareness, multiliteracy, digital competences, civic, personal and social competences. We learn through green actions, use foreign languages, present the gained knowledge through digital media, meet new people, work in teams. All this contributes to personal growth of pupils, teachers, parents, locals and other experts.