"The project ""Live naturally - live healthy"" aimed to reinforce the concept of citizenship by raising awareness, to safeguard cultural heritage, to develop a true feeling of partnership, of helpfulness, of respect for the differences involving all the participants in the European construction. This international project involved schools from city areas. Having a strong cultural heritage, allowed the participants to join an important educational experience. This project allowed us to share good practices and promote new technologies as the main communication vehicle. Each partner shared new technologies’ skills to exchange knowledge. The cooperation between pupils and teachers improved new working methods and a better organization of the learning process.The language used has been English, so the common work and exchanges have been perfect opportunities to improve linguistic skills, to use and practice the language during every day conversations. By participating in researches, pupils had the chance to extend their knowledge widely in various themes and to work together in a different way as to the compulsory school activities. Moreover, the project has been useful for teachers so that they had the opportunity to learn about different European cultures and languages, so now they can teach what they learned to their pupils.The aimis to promote a culture based on healthy lifestyles to help students to appreciate best practices while safeguarding their own health.Unhealthy lifestyles (poor diet, excessive drinking, smoking, lack of exercise) have negative repercussions not only on the health of the individuals but on their environment as well.This project aimed at developing an educational environment that will support young people by promoting healthy lifestyles. The project focused on promotion of a healthy and appropriate diet, a less sedentary lifestyle and on raising awareness of the damages that alcohol and smoking can cause. The project also aimed to encourage students to improve their personal skills and talents, thus increasing individuals’ self-esteem and self-confidence. These general objectives have been achieved through the following specific objectives:• To develop and harmonize lifestyle habits of adolescents across Europe with special focus on diet, nutrition and physical activity. • To assess dietary and physical activity patterns as well as nutritional status among European adolescents• To investigate knowledge and attitudes towards nutrition and physical activity among adolescents and to establish the main determinants of their food choice and preference• To describe regional, cultural, social and gender differences and similarities across Europe • To develop a Lifestyle Education Programme and test its efficacy for improving adolescents´ healthThe project involved students of Secondary school (aged 11-14) from three different countries: Italy, Lithuania, Spain. During the project students and staff had the opportunity to:-improve language learning and scientific skills;-enhance collaboration and cooperation skills within home schools and between partner schools;-developartistic, expressive, linguistic, computer and social skills;-increase awareness on environmental issues;-knowledge about dietary and physical activity patterns in European adolescents;-improve lifestyle habits of adolescents;The main activities have been: Set-up of a project blog; Diagnostic surveys; Erasmus Corner; Research work about landscapes; Video recording of each region's typical harvests; Artistic presentation of landscape; Slideshows about each school; Photographing all regions: geographical recognition of each area; E-Book: “Healthy food from our tradition""; Logo contest; Recipe Book; Fitness week; Set up of a Website; Conference held by students about health benefits; Food Lab; researches. questionnaires, interviews about risks factors; Healthy week.Teachers used alternative teaching methods and encouraged investigation and the sense of exploring in their students.Dissemination has been carried out throughout the project with the publication of articles in the local press, social media and on the school website to inform students, staff and stakeholders on project activities promoting the Erasmus+ programme.The participants created a database available to all and provided support to involve their colleagues. In particular, through the learning objects every teacher could improve his learning process in relation to the contributions of the group.On the project website we conveyed all the information and documentation available, with particular reference to the products manufactured in the different project phases.Finally, Internet also allowed us to activate a direct contact with potential final beneficiaries (even more than the number of those who are directly involved in the training) and to interact with them."

<< Background >>The hectic world we live in, the Covid-19 pandemic situation, the constant and restrictive lockdowns all mean we need to face new challenges as educators, teachers and while our own lives are largely affected, too, both in our professional and private lives.As a result, we wanted to find new solutions to post Covid classrooms, where we can adapt to the new surroundings and needs of students. We believe the insights of psychology and especially positive psychology can provide us the answer to promoting school well-being and feeling of happiness, so essential on the level of individual and also on the level of communities. It seems obvious that even if the ultimate aim is helping the community prosper and be strengthened by positivity and happiness, there need to be places and sources where they can turn to for support. Therefore, it is the schools, starting with their leaders and teachers that need to be strengthened this way in order to enable them to provide this support for their community. In most cases it is not the vocation of these professionals or the idea of supporting the general well-being of the community of their students and everyone else involved that teachers and others in the field lack, rather the know-how of doing it in a valid and effective way. So primarily our project aims to support teachers and other professionals involved to equip them with theoretical background and approaches as well as skills and practices that help them first learn and embed these positive ideas in their own lives, then implement them in their everyday practices. For setting our aims and objectives in the best possible way, using our strengths in a realistic manner, we decided to use George T. Doran’s SMART criteria for good goals. According to his model a good aim needs to be Specific, so our intention is to take part in on-line training sessions specifically aimed to equip us with the theoretical background and practical help to be able to design and test teaching content related to positive psychology and general well-being of students and staff members alike. We plan to do the testing of the usability of the created content not only in our immediate surroundings, but also on an international level, thus making sure, that in the end we will be able to help educators not only in our own countries, but also beyond them. We also want it to be Measurable, therefore our expert worked out the ways for testing our improvements by the end of the training sessions and we have already thought about the form of the final products. In the SMART acronym A can stand for an Achievable or Attainable goal, therefore we carefully planned who will do which part of the project while continually being in touch from the time of preparation. The Relevance of supporting teachers through the means of positive psychology is present in all the activities and discussions in our project. Finally, we must be Time-bound as we assign specific time-frames for each of the planned activities. Therefore, educators will be able to learn a new approach to their own life, or refresh it if they already share these positive views and gain more insight on beneficial practices, they can further develop themselves through discussions and brainstorming in international groups of several fields of education, not just teaches of their own subjects. They are not only to learn about the concepts, but also to embed them, so that in the end they will be able to live their lives with the ideas and methods of positivity as well as show others their benefits and teach it to their students and even colleagues, with the ultimate aim of making schools more enjoyable places, where the well-being of teachers and students are just as important as their academic success and achievement.<< Objectives >>The positive focus of psychological research emerged with the 21st century, so its novelty is still evident, especially as far as learning and teaching methods and approaches are concerned. In the last decades experts were focusing on how to help make life worth living and how to define, quantify, and create wellbeing. In 2012 Dr. Martin E. Seligman selected five components that people pursue because they are intrinsically motivating and they contribute to wellbeing, and he created the so called PERMA model what we decided to use as a backbone of our project. The five elements or components in PERMA are Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments. In our project our objectives include learning more about these elements and other useful aspects of positivity from an expert of this new psychological field in about 50 hours of teacher training, then create our own teaching content which may be tested first in our own school environment, then with international groups of teachers and students to be able to prove their usability, and if necessary improve or adjust them, so that they could be used not only in real-life teaching situations, but also in teacher training. So after learning the theory behind this new approach we would like to see examples of teaching and learning methods to become able to create our own materials that by the end of the project can be documented, tested and finally edited and published in a form of a booklet for the reference of future educators, students or even teacher trainers who are interested in the topic and share our vision. According to this vision we strive to build resilience, wellbeing, and optimism as part of preserving and promoting mental health of participants and enable them to be able to teach the learned methods and approaches to others. The aims include equipping teachers individually and in teams with practical skills, as well as their organizations with information to be able to improve quality of life first of all for themselves, then for their students, thus even reducing the chances of mental health issues like depression and burn-out. We share the view that the time has come for a new prosperity, one that takes flourishing seriously as the goal of education as much as of parenting. Learning to value and to attain flourishing must start in the formative years of schooling, and it is this new prosperity, supported by positive education that the world needs especially after the hardships we had to endure in the last few years. Therefore, we would like to achieve a general improvement of the school environment, starting with our own schools, where all the participants enjoy being instead of just suffering it as a necessary means to a higher aim. If in the future we can achieve that all people working and studying in the school experience positive emotions during the time they are connected with it, it will not only help them as individuals, but also the institute and its service to the community, which can start from including the immediate surroundings and partner organizations, but may further be developed until reaching out to other institutes of education, promoting positivity even on international levels. For that reason, we would like to ensure that this new approach is evident and clearly understood by the participants and their schools, so we plan to issue a Proclamation of Positivity in which we proclaim that our schools take a stand for implementing changes towards positive education and we plan to reach out to our partner institutions to invite them to learn more about this new approach and join us in our efforts developing it further in the future.<< Implementation >>The activities fall into the following categories:1.Activities that focus on the creation of the main final product, our guide on Positive Education based on two years of research and cooperationTherefore, there will be 5 online training sessions, which take place 60 days prior to the LTTA events.All e-learning courses cover the topics of psychological well-being, flourishing and psychological resources, with a special focus on school achievement and high performance. The content of the 5 modules are built around the PERMA model of Seligman and cover the five main elements of well-being: (1) positive emotions, (2) engagement, (3) positive relations, (4) meaning and (5) accomplishment. The topics also include the main concepts of positive psychology: wellbeing and character strengths. The courses can be completed independently of each other; they can be offered to participants separately or in any relevant combination according to personal or target group’s needs. However, they are all based on positive psychology and the wellbeing principles, and their order (from 1 to 5) reflect a logical structure of the PERMA model. Readings and videos can be varied due to the target group’s special interest, a different reading material is needed for teachers, parents and school leaders. The courses are strongly based on self-reflection and the interpretation of own experiences, require personal involvement, and the relevant theoretical background is built up from the findings of participants’ individual e-learning activity, and the real-time discussion (online or contact) is an essential part of the modules as it provides an opportunity to share and digest the course material. The short assignments of the courses serve as practical examples of planned students’ tasks and activities. By the end of the course, participants will be able to interpret the relevant concepts, understand their functioning and apply them in a classroom context. The related LTTA events will serve the purpose of testing the learnt ideas, concepts that take shape in the form of educational activities with students who act as international pilot groups. The activities will cover various fields of school education, such as English/foreign language learning, IT, P.E., Science, Environmental studies, Social studies, Psychology, Biology, History etc.2.Activities that aim at dissemination and follow-up of project results, such as-Erasmus + space presentation panel-articles in schools’ magazines- logo, posters, brochure and fliers-E-learning platform shared-meetings with students, teachers, parents- sharing results with other schools in the same chain of schools, directorate, educational center- meetings at City Hall, Library- Career Days- Open School Days, organized in schools- logo, posters, pliable and fliers- E-learning platform based on the training course- Social Media appearances- Digital and Social Media portfolios accomplished- local media articles and interviews all throughout project; Social Media’s importance in youngster’s lives being so prevalent in all partner countries, the information brought by this project will have a powerful impact on local community and wider lifelong learning community being received with interest- E-learning platform- posters, fliers - visits to different schools in the department; project teams (students and teachers alike) will present projects’ activities and end products,- pedagogic and specialty meetings of teachers, form masters, educational counselors, 3.Activities that are to monitor and supervise proper implementation of tasks and dutiesHere, key concepts are activities that relate to communication within and outside of the partnership (e.g. with National Agencies), the Evaluation Program that is to measure the quality and quantity of implementation, and impact of the partnership, and Transnational meetings for coordinators that take place 2 times during the project.<< Results >>The following final outcomes and results will be produced by the end of the 24-month cooperation:- creation, participation and completion of a training course for staff involved on the five elements of the PERMA model. The training course will include the following components: theoretical input on the sub elements, how they affect the age group in focus (secondary school students aged 14-19), gives sample activities, based on which at the end of each training session the participating staff will produce more activities (at least 2/group).- professional educational teaching resources in printed and electronic versions: sample lesson plans with materials included, field observation sheets, measurement classifications, description and methods- creation of Proclamation of Positivity, which is to represent European Unity and responsible, active citizenship in this field with the opportunity for open online registration thus establishing a database for our dissemination activities. The Proclamation will be a strong statement on claiming back positivity in school around Europe.- 6 language dictionary on the topic in printed and electronic versions, the latter is part of our website that can be developed in the project period.All the findings, activities, lesson plans and project results will be uploaded to the project’s own website, the Erasmus+ project results platform and eTwinning as well. A project YouTube channel will inform the public about our activities through students’ Vlog ‘10 positive things I learnt in...’ to illustrate the visited places. We are going to create a Guide to Well-being Booklet with lesson/activity plans described here, suggestions for class activities, psychology tests and travel diaries.The project is completely established on the basis of creating an innovative and multidisciplinary teaching material that is proven and justified by the international partnership in an authentic way. The following criteria details our goals implemented:1. The host countries will gather the educational resources (lesson plans, task sheets, test sheets etc.) prior to the meetings in accordance with the idea behind the project. The activities are the result of each training session 60 days prior to the meeting on the given sub element of well-being. The hosting school will be in charge of the testing of the newly created materials/activities.2. The partners prove and justify the educational resources which were created in advance in the first one or two days of each project meetings. This all happens with consideration of the facilities of the host school. This is to take place under the management of the hosting school by proofreading and trying the previously created lesson plans, tasks etc. This is a way of quality management, namely to provide schools and other target groups a proven and tried teaching resource for educational purposes.3. During the international meetings partners improve and supplement the resources based on the feedback of students. 4. The LTTA events and Transnational meetings are also used to deal with other major goals of the application, including:- supervision of our web site, and setting goals for improvement for the next meeting- supervision of the 6 language dictionary on the topic, and setting goals for improvement for the next meeting (suggestions for new vocabulary items based on consensus)- presentation of ready multimedia materials, setting the concept of them based on consensus (contents, length, etc.).5. The outcomes, teaching materials finalized at the meetings will be tested at each school’s own premises in one month after the meetings. The fact of the trial and its effects will be documented and shared with partners. This is also a way of quality management to prove that the results justify the international partnership.

Over the last decade a rise of nationalism can be noted within European societies. HERCULE - an acronym that stands for 'HERitage and CULture in Europe' - is a project that aims to create a better understanding of the benefits of multiculturalism and cooperation on a European level. It is our goal to make students more aware of the specifics of their own national identity and cultural heritage, and at the same time learn about other European cultures so that they will be able to appreciate both their own culture and other cultures more. A special focus within this project is dedicated to migration. How can immigrants contribute to local cultures? How can local cultures and its traditions and customs be transferred to immigrants? Cultures are not static, and therefore participants will need to understand how cultures develop, change and adapt over time, in order to keep their relevance in a globalising and integrating world.Our objectives are to (1) create a better understanding of and knowledge about the learner's local and national culture, their cultural heritage and their daily life and habits; (2) create knowledge about the way immigrants are adapted in local/national culture and the difficulties immigrants experience in doing so; (3) create insight in the complexity of adapting culture to a changing society, and creating awareness of the necessity to actively contribute to and participate in cultural heritage; (4) make students learn about other European cultures, understand what makes them unique, and create a sense of value to both other cultures as well as one's own culture; and (5) learn to cooperate with learners/teachers of other schools in other countries on a joint project in a non-native language (English).To reach the objectives, HERCULE will require participating learners to fulfill a number of assignments. 25 learners aged 15-16 of every partner school will be selected to visit another school, hence 150 students will be involved in the actual exchange programme. At every school, during the week that the exchange students are hosted, other learners of the school, as well as members of staff, will participate in the cultural and educational activities. Thus HERCULE will reach many more students and members of staff within the six partner schools.The project consists of various assignments for the participating learners. The first assignment for aspiring learners will be to answer a questionnaire about cultural heritage and knowledge. The results of this questionnaire, that will be repeated at the end of the project, will give data that show the revenues/results of the project. The results will then be used by the teachers to evaluate the different assignments, and how each of them have contributed to the objectives of the project. This insight will be used to modify the education system and tools used in how citizenship education is organised now, as well as adaptations to future exchange programmes and cultural heritage awareness. This will create long term benefits for our schools, as well as other schools that look into HERCULE through the eTwinning and Erasmus+ websites.Further assigments are designed to prepare both visiting another country as well as hosting visitors from other countries and other cultures. These assigments are designed to make use of eTwinning, and stimulate cooperation between students of all participating schools in mixed groups. These assignments will teach students about their own culture and its heritage, the culture of other countries, the process of integration of migrants into its own society and other societies. And of course it will teach them how to cooperate with students of another background of other schools in a joint effort through usage of modern technology in eTwinning.After these preparatory assignments are fulfilled, the exchanges will start. During each exchange the local learners will prepare activities that aim to actively involve both local learners that are not involved in one of the exchanges as well as the visiting learners to participate, hence better understanding the cultural heritage of the hosts. Examples are wood-crafting in Germany, traditional song in Lithuania, celebrating King's Day in the Netherlands et cetera. Special classes designed to create better knowledge and understanding of the local culture will be prepared by local teachers. The conceptual idea students have on how migrants could learn and appreciate the local culture are first debated with teachers of the school, and implemented during the exchange on the visiting learners and teachers. Through a questionnaire each visit is evaluated in order to improve following exchanges within HERCULE. After the final exchange, all results that derive from the questionnaires and lessons learned by the involved teachers, will lead to a final evaluation of HERCULE, the possible improvements for future exchanges and education in citizenship and in cultural heritage.

The Environmental Awareness Across Europe (EAAE) project was designed to raise awareness and educate our students in environmental issues, develop a lifestyle education programme and test its effectiveness in improving teenagers’ environmental education. Our students analysed their local situation and presented it to the other participants, thus promoting pro-ecological attitudes. They organised their own activities through a virtual Eco-Club, run by the students themselves under teachers’ guidance, via a blog and a WhatsApp group, with the purpose of turning their schools into ecological, environmental-friendly institutions. The idea of the project is very simple, as it focuses on environmental awareness. What makes it specially innovative is the fact that students had a particularly active role and degree of autonomy in the implementation of the activities. Indeed, they were responsible for making decisions and collaborated to develop an Ecological Code of Behaviour based upon their own work. Likewise, they led discussion groups and debates during the project meetings, and gave presentations and elaborated surveys and reports, among other things. Together with their teachers, the students involved in the project contributed as active and responsible citizens to maintain and improve the quality of the environment in which we all live. In passing, they reflected upon regional, cultural and social similarities and differences. The project involved secondary school students (aged 13-15) from different countries and focused on five main topics: (1) Recycling and waste segregation(2) Electricity and water consumption(3) Consumption of local products(4) Urban transport(5) Protected areas Each of these five topics was approached by following a 4-phase cycle: analysis and raising awareness (field research activities) > presentation of results (student conferences at project meetings) > debate and evaluation > action and dissemination (school activities after the mobilities). Through these activities, both students and staff had the opportunity to:- improve learning and scientific skills;- enhance cooperative skills within home schools and between the partner schools;- develop linguistic, expressive, artistic, computer, social and civic skills;- increase awareness and develop a new mentality concerning all environmental issues.Some of the most important activities were the setting up of an Erasmus+ Corner, the project website, the management of a virtual Eco-Club, PPT slideshows about each school, the logo contest, field research work about environmental issues, diagnostic survey and questionnaires, student conferences and presentations followed by debates and joint reflections, photo reports, videos and exhibitions, multilingual e-dictionary, Ecological Code of Behaviour (digital and printed version), exhibitions of objects made with recycled materials. Teachers have resorted to inclusive, innovative methods of teaching, thus encouraging students to investigate, explore and analyse by following a cooperative, project-based methodological approach. The most innovative, experienced teachers provided support to other colleagues interested in adopting such innovative methods. Dissemination has been carried out (it still is) throughout the project with the publication of news items in the local press, social media (mainly Twitter and Facebook) and on each official school website to inform students, staff and stakeholders on project activities promoting the Erasmus+ programme. On the project website we have conveyed information and documentation about some of the most appealing activities, paying particular attention to the results of the different project phases. It has been regularly updated. The Internet and such powerful social networks as Twitter has led (or is still leading) dissemination and impact beyond our nearby educational communities, allowing us to activate a direct contact with potential beneficiaries (much more than the number of those who are involved in the project) and interact with them. Finally, we believe that gaining knowledge of each partner’s traditions, culture and habits has made our students aware that they belong to a common European family. In other words, in everyday teaching our students can experience environmental issues in their country, whereas through a transnational project they have been able to experienced themselves as citizens of the world. An experience that, to go along with the Erasmus slogan, has changed their lives and opened their minds.