Nowadays, environmental issues represent a major global concern as they affect the quality of our lifestyle. Since most of the environmental challenges facing humanity are the consequences of human harmful activities, we, as educators, feel that it is our duty to educate students in this respect in order to become responsible adults. With the project “ Be-Friend with nature”, 5 schools in Bulgaria, Turkey, Poland, Greece and Italy aim to provide participants with a wide range of opportunities so as to enhance their awareness on environmental issues and enrich knowledge in the field thanks to innovative teaching and learning methods. Hence, they will do presentations, analysis, search activities in a collaborative and stimulating atmosphere that encourages communication with their peers.Project objectives can be summarized as follows:• to enhance participants’ knowledge and degree of awareness towards environmental global issues • to motivate students develop a proactive attitude and think globally• to foster the integration of innovative strategies such as flexible and personalized learning, digital story telling, gamification, video-based learning, project-based learning in the schools' curriculum• to raise students’ interest in learning foreign languages, especially English, and develop their English language communicative skills• to promote the use of CLIL in the Environmental Education subject• to improve key competences and skills in ICT and digital tools• to develop participants’ sense of tolerance, active citizenship and ability to overcome cultural and linguistic obstacles• to improve pedagogical expertise and experience• to provide a European dimension to the educational process in all partner schoolsStudents aged ….. will represent the main target group and they will cooperate in transnational teams so as to exchange impressions, ideas, knowledge, cultural aspects of their home countries. We estimate that a total number of approximately 400 students will be indirect beneficiaries of the project at partnership level.Project products will consist of:-Official project website-E-twinning project space-E-booklet of Innovative Strategies with lesson plans and original examples from all five schools-Urban sprawl photo album -E-booklet of endangered species-Digital story book on deforestation and endangered species- Educational Video games database-E-booklet of the international and local NGOs/institutions working for environmentProject partners have decided to share project responsibilities and each school will contribute to the project, follow the project calendar and deadlines established within the partnership.The project outcomes and outputs will generate an inspiring potential. All project products will be available for free use on project website, in the e-twinning platform. The planned LTTAs will be highlights in the project; an effective learning process environment based on participants’ experience and exchange employing various methods that focus mainly on practice. These will foster strengthened motivation, team spirit, increased self-confidence, creativity for constructive activities and further lifelong skills.Participants will benefit from the undeniable experience and expertise of professionals and the schools’ associated partners in this project. By applying a constructivist approach, adults will assist students to transfer the gained information and apply it to a modern and dynamic school environment that will lead to a higher rank quality of educational services across Europe

ContextEducation of today no longer calls for memorizing. It calls for the creation of a context in which students can make sense of the learning material while also enjoying the experience that they do not feel any burden in the learning activities. However, we are constantly struggling with the issue of lack of motivation and school interest and these stop our students from gaining better results while we unsuccessfully try to motivate them to learn. In keeping with recent theories, gamification was proven to be a solution to these issues. Games are engaging and thus they increase motivation. Gamification uses game elements and applies them in other settings. MethodologyWe decided to use gamification theory to develop a teaching system while applying gamification on school subjects such as: Maths, Science and English. We shall involve a class of each school that will be the direct beneficiary of all project activities both online (eTwinning) and offline. These classes will be pilot classes and we will measure the efficiency of the program on these classes to be able to expand to others in the future. We envisioned 5 LTTAs in the project. LTTA1 gives the opportunity to meet, share analyses and produce common frameworks for the implementation of the gamification project in classes. Every LTTA will grant teachers the opportunity to share good practices based on the level of improvement to student performance and success and also to demonstrate sample activities.Objectives1. Improvement of student school satisfaction by at least 10%.2. Reduction in student numbers that perform badly on home assignments by at least 15%3. Improvement of skill and competency acquisition in key subjects: Science, Maths and English, observable through constant evaluation processes (during each LTTA) and through final examinations. 4. An improvement in teaching skills by including the principles of gamification regularly.5. Facilitation of cooperation between partner teachers to create a common guide for the inclusion of gamification in class. Number and profile of participantsEvery mobility group is formed of 5 people per country per LTTA. One of them will be the contact/coordinator and the other 3, primary school teachers that work on project activities, lesson designs and apply them to students. Every one of the 3 will be given a subject matter (Maths, Science, English) to focus on during each translational activity. The project includes a total number of 100 mobilities. Description of activitiesLTTA1 - discussions, analyses and idea comparison about gamification and the means to implement it in the pilot classes previously set at each school. Presentation of ideas and the best ones will be used to redesign the system of achievement. LTTA2 - main focus on Science gamification and how to include it taking into account experiences and ideas of all partners. LTTA3 – main focus on English gamification LTTA4 – main focus on Maths gamification LTTA5 – main focus on online/digital games to be used with students Results1. a teacher’s guide to implementing gamification in key subjects, to include the following subchapters 2. materials for dissemination - photos, articles, sample activities 3. a project page on eTwinning to host all results4. website for the project, pages on social media5. materials for project visibility 6. evaluation instruments for both the beginning and the end 7. impact report8. sustainability plan9. teacher and student questionnaires10. attendance and Europass mobility certificates11. student prizes and badgesImpact on target groups: - on students: increase in motivation and better results due to the new method of teaching that uses gamification. Learning becomes more fun, the environment safer and more secure and the students will aquire more knowledge while having fun. - on teachers: cohesion and collaboration between teachers will increase while the growth in student motivation will motivate the teachers to prepare even more interesting lessons using the new methods.- on parents: better communication between school and parents (they will appreciate their children’s school progress and their will to participate in class).