"Within the project ""Think European - Act locally"", the Leibniz Montessori Gymnasium in Düsseldorf is planning a strategic partnership with three secondary schools in other EU countries: the 13th Gymnasio in Heraklion/Crete (Greece), the Sundsvalls Gymnasium Hedbergska (Sweden) and the Perifereiako Gymnasio Agias Varvaras in Nicosia (Cyprus). The main objective of the project is to strengthen the idea of sustainability in the European context within the school communities and to act as a reference for future projects, using examples for local actions of the participating schools. At the same time it should be shown that the local identity does not contradict the basic idea of a European Union. On the contrary, it should become clear that an approving attitude towards a European identity presupposes a local identity. The idea and the principle of sustainability represent another (identity-connecting) core aspect in our concept, since in a common Europe all member states benefit from the sustainability ideas of each one. Only through sustainable action it is possible to shape both our local homeland and ""our Europe"" in the long term and to preserve it as a living space, regardless of its dimension.A total of 144 pupils will be able to participate. The selection of suitable candidates will initially be based on interests, i.e. after the presentation of the project, pupils interested in the project will be able to contact us. In addition, participation is subject to the condition that the interested pupils must have the maturity to spend a certain amount of time abroad. They should regularly take part in lessons and, if necessary, in an existing working group (e.g. Fairtrade-AG) that is relevant to the project. Respectful cooperation and appropriate communication in English as well as active involvement in the planning and design of the project are further criteria. They must also be willing to accept guests. We aim to achieve the aforementioned objectives through a range of learning activities. The planned activities/mobilities are:1) A training for teachers of the participating institutions on the topic of the project in the very beginning. 2) Long-term mobility of pupils from Germany and Sweden in the partner school of each country country.3) Short mobility of pupils and teachers. Working groups from all participating institutions meet for learning activities in the partial aspects of the project theme:- Fairtrade (in Sweden),- Energy production from renewable sources/recycling (in Cyprus),- Regional products and sustainable agriculture (in Greece),- Participation in a sustainability conference - preferably in Brussels.4) Closing event:- Form: regional market, starting with a common, fair and sustainable breakfast (a FAIR-TRADE- Breakfast is already established at the host school)- Participants: School representatives from all schools, entrepreneurs, press, representatives of the municipality of Düsseldorf- What's going on? Presentation of the project and already evaluated results, ideas, activities; presentation of products- Goals (selection): Creating awareness for one's own actions; pointing out complex interrelations Within the framework of the individual modalities and the planning steps, working groups will be formed for the following activities: Work with local partners, organisation in the school, contact with the press and representatives of the municipality of Düsseldorf, organisation and realization of the regional market and fair breakfast, evaluation of interim results, organisation of activities on site, public relations work and help with the organisation of accommodation. When it comes to the implementation of sustainability in everyday life, we hope to sharpen the awareness of all those involved, both in short and in long term. We want to connect the actors involved from the local to the international level. This applies not only to the partner schools amongst each other, but also to companies and students. We want to shape a common future beyond the project, in which everyone - inspired by the cooperation - works for a common Europe and a sustainable future. The European idea should be strengthened as well as the awareness for the preservation of our planet and the sensible use of resources."

"Teenager today - European citizen tomorrow. This partnership aims to make our teenagers discover our cultural identities, accept and learn from each other, and to grow as future European citizens. One of our goals is to create a larger network for teenagers in the European Union, by starting with our partnership from the four countries Croatia, Cyprus, France and Sweden. To achieve our goal we are going to begin with comparisons in different field studies such as culture, everyday life and local environment. By using statistic tools, scientific examinations and inquiries we will have results which will be comparable. The comparisons are our cultural habits, environment and everyday consumption. The main curriculum areas in this project are: math, science, technology, design/art and languages. We will exchange our results through moving exhibitions, our pupils are going to bring posters and hold presentations at the hosting school. The last meeting, the finale, will be a film festival where a short film on ""Teenager today - European citizen tomorrow"" will be released by each participating country. Using ICT, emails, Skype and eTwinning pupils will research and share knowledge."

Culture in action involved teachers and students from 4 complementary schools from Cyprus, France, the Netherlands and Slovakia and it lasted 3 years. Our students were between 14 and 17 years old and came from 2 vocational schools and 2 general schools. Many of them came from socially disadvantaged families and were issued from immigration. Working together gave them the opportunity to come in contact with people from other countries and discover the culture from their partners. Most of our students lacked confidence in themselves, in autonomy and in self-esteem and we were convinced that the richness of the cultural heritage and diversity highlighted all along our project activities would allow our students to be more tolerant, more open minded and it would stimulate their mutual respect. Teaching with the profile of our students needed to be done in an innovative way to push them to carry on with their studies and to become active European citizens of tomorrow. Our objectives were: To gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of foreign culture and strengthen international relationships in creating an escape game.To confront challenges outside a familiar support network and comfort zone. To give our students the feeling they are European citizensWe had 5 Learning, Teaching and Training Activities. During the first year, 1 called “By understanding”in Slovakia where our students got to know each other, built our project identity, discovered some part of the Slovakian cultural heritage and started to work on the creation of quizzes for our escape game. 1 in France called “By valueing” where our students cooked a fusion meal in international teams, discovered some part of the cultural heritage and continued the creation of the escape game. During the second year, we had 1 in Cyprus called “By caring” where our students sang and danced traditional dances in the amphitheater of Kourion, discovered some part of the Cypriot culture heritage and invented the setting for the escape game and continued the creation of more quizzes for the escape game. Because of the worldwide lockdown we couldn’t have our Learning, Teaching and Training Activity in the Netherlands. So we asked for a one year extension for our project in hope to be able to do our last visit but in vain, because of the pandemic situation we finalised our project with a fifth Learning Teaching and Training activity with one three-day-online meeting. Our students could exchange with a Member of the European Parliament, visited virtually the European Parliament, discovered some part of the Dutch cultural heritage online and had great fun playing online with their escape game in international teams.We worked with the Twinspace of eTwinning. It enabled us to have a secure place where to work in teams, to discuss, to collaborate on the different themes and tasks which involved a much larger number of students between, during and after the Learning, Teaching and Training Activities. Our students worked in national or in international teams to get to know each other, to discover their countries, their gastronomy, their traditional songs and dances. They presented, analysed, synthesized, collaborated, evaluated and created various tasks and activities which improved languages, entrepreneurial and ICT skills. The tangible results are a Twinspace with all our project process and results; a multilingualism dictionary; a website; a netiquette chart; 4 emagazines summarizing our Learning Teaching and Training activities; 4 leaflets; a ecooking recipe book with all our recipe cooked by the students during the fusion meal; 8 films on our various subjects such as Learning Teaching and Training Activities and our students’ opinion on our project; 1 live TV show recorded during our online meeting; our Escape Game. The escape game setting was chosen by our students and it is composed of several quizzes on cultural facts of our four countries and created by our students. The impacts are huge for our participants. Our students were very active during all phases of our project, they were more interested in working to learn by doing and became more motivated in their studies and most of them had wished to pursue their studies. They gained confidence and self esteem. Working in international teams made them realise how important it is. The international part of this project enriched their linguistic skills and pushed them to be more curious and more tolerant toward their neighbours.The teachers reinforced their knowledge in project management and in innovative teaching. This project was highlighly disseminated to the eTwinning community thanks to the coordinators who are ambassadors and who participated in national and international webinars to share their expertise on collaborative activities and informing about our project as a way to implement student centered learning. Our project is visible on the Twinspace and is a source of inspiration for more teachers.

'Creative minds' is a project concerning robotics and modern computer technologies. By its implementation the partner schools make changes in teaching science subjects, incorporate the elements of robotics into the curricula of the subjects like Technology, Mathematics, Information Technology and Physics, and introduce new methods and forms of work during lessons. The teachers and students gain knowledge and skills within constructing, programming and steering robots and devices designed of the Lego bricks, gradually introducing their own creative ideas and solutions to their work. Owing to this fact, they develop rational thinking, creativity and innovativeness. The effective cooperation and communication between the schools is guaranteed by constant e-mail exchanges, chats, video-conferences, sending packages with authentic materials, vast usage of Twinspace tools and project website. The Mindmeister is used for online brainstorming. During the project the Polish and Cypriot teachers participate in the joint staff training courses concerning the use of the Lego in education and modern techniques of creative thinking, learning and self-development, deepening their knowledge and skills, getting to know modern methods and forms of work, improving their English skills and exchanging own experiences. Newly acquired skills are used by the teachers during lessons and extracurricular activities, while creating lesson plans, training and educational materials. The students of both schools take part in joint exchanges of the groups of pupils in Cyprus and Poland. They participate in common technologic and language workshops. While cooperating in the international Polish-Cypriot groups, they solve tasks within Maths and Physics based on Lego Engineer Projects, construct, program and steer robots, design own devices and create the Lego mini-guide of constructing manuals of the robots of own ideas with descriptions in English. They also construct the robot for space exploration, conduct virtual mission on the planet Mars and work out trilingual mini-dictionaries of words and phrases connected with robotics and ICT. Cyclic Technology & IT, science and language classes are conducted at the schools, and the events disseminating the project take place. Those are as follows - Creativity Day, Earth Day, or the final conferences attended by teachers, students, parents, local educational authorities and local community members of both schools. 40 teachers and 200 students of both schools take part in the project, including 10 teachers who participate in the joint staff trainings, 30 students and 4 teachers taking part in the joint exchanges of the groups of pupils. Due to the implementation of the project, the permanent changes in teaching occur in both schools. Those are modifications of the curricula of science subjects, introduction of the new methods and forms of work, innovative approaches and solutions. Similar tasks will constantly be carried out with future generations of students.

This partnership involved seven secondary schools in the project entitled “Skills4life”.Partner countries were chosen under the following consideration: each partner country (coming from different part of Europe) represents different state of economy with various rates of unemployment and different level of the attainment of transversal skills as well – by comparing all the things mentioned we can draw the conclusions and „make” equal European employees. By comparing in Europe these different figures we will be able to make a deep analysis of successful strategies and means to form future European workers, ready to enter the job market with equality of conditions. So the extension of this analysis from North to South of Europe, this overview will afford more data for theproject and the basis for the planning of activities.It was assessed that the partners represent countries with different economic, social and political realities, in order to obtain, as much as possible, a more comprehensive and global treatment of the subject. For the same reason we have tried to involve in it a variety of school types (vocational, private and general education schools). Our project aimed at stimulating a sense of entrepreneurship and creative mindset among Young people as a key factor in their future life linked to their professional and personal development as well. These goals were achieved in 13 smaller steps: These were as follows:1. A digital timeline where there will be references on the history of learning and teaching 2. Portfolio - Me and my learning. Identify your skills – all the students gather information about themselves - to emphasize the connection between learning in school and future adult life; to stress the importance of learning how to learn; to identifystrategies for learning used by students including: know yourself -learning history and motivation, about giving and receiving feedback, skills they have and skills they need culture, 3. A printed book - Back in time - about each partner’ traditions, what is learned from the ancestors. It can help the students develop the understanding of who they are and what they can become, it develops also intercultural competences 4. A library of movies where a person gets into a foreign country for the first time, and encounters culture shock, trying to adapt to the new culture 5. Card gallery- collection of portrayals of intercultural incidents in caricature style to raise awareness of different perspectives on an incident or misunderstanding among different cultures. 6. Documentary – I can help-charity event, students in each country prepare a charity event which will be trying to solve some local problems, answer some needs of people living around, 7. A video Who is who which will present the most prominent entrepreneurs from Europe. 8. A collection of digital work sheets and evaluation sheets designed with the web2.0 tools which can be used by teachers in the classroom. 9. A vocabulary booklet - Alphabet of entrepreneurship – (digital and printed) of the most common terms connected with entrepreneurship 10. A digital file with the titles, trailers and a short description of movies with great lessons for entrepreneurs, 11. A booklet and ppt presentation -An Unemployment factfile – with data concerning the unemployment rates in each partners’ countries,12. A guidebook - Preparing for employment – tips about job interview, covering letter, CV, 13. “European Skills for Life Handbook” – it’s a collection of the most important information gathered/learned through 3 years project, made up with the results of the 12 questions survey done to each company when students visited them, 14. Diary ofvisiting local companies with the data the students found out, the problems and successes, marketing, employment issues aand working conditions. 15. Brochures and posters for the promotion and dissemination of the project. 16. Blog about the project where the activities carried out in each school , photos , as well as the information on the meetings , were constantly updated.Thanks to these activities, their participants were stimulated to develop and to assess of key competencies including basic skills and transversal skills particularly entrepreneurship, languages and digital skills as well as their artistic, creative abilities, communicative, organizational and social skills. ICT skills, research skills were practiced while preparing project products: leaflets, multimedia presentations, films, interviews, DVDs but not only: also to contact other teachers and students. Self-involvement, active European citizenship and European solidarity were the values we shared. Exploring how the countries work , finding the best things despite differences among them helped us promote intercultural dialogue in our schools and local communities and made the pupils realise the importance of mutual understanding within European Union.