"""Between 50% and 80% of students in EU countries never use digital textbooks, exercise software, broadcasts/podcasts, simulations or learning games. Most teachers at primary and secondary level do not consider themselves as 'digitally confident' or able to teach digital skills effectively, and 70% would like more training in using ICTs."" (European Commission release on 'Opening up Education').As the European Commission has identified the digitization of the education and the necessity of modernizing the learning environment for the young Europeans as a top priority, the Digital Education Action Plan has been adapted including actions to support technology-use and digital competence development in education. These actions concern and lead to making better use of digital technology for teaching and learning as well as developing digital competences and skills of both teachers and their pupils. In that framework and based on the idea of introducing a new innovative e-tool accessible and open to all the schools in Europe, we have developed the “VR in School Education & Civic participation” project idea. This 24-months project seeks to expose both teachers and the participating students to a new experience of learning through a Virtual Reality Game. The aim of their participation is to enhance their digital and soft skills while at the same time enrich their knowledge on specific issues that will be explored during different phases of the project. The Virtual Reality Game that will be played by the students concerns a digital simulation of the European Youth Council where all participants will express their opinions and make proposals on the issues of:1.Safe use of Internet and social media2.Bulling at schools and Cyber bullying3.Human rights & Multicultural environment in the EU4.European Citizenship & Rights5.Environmental Behavior6.Sustainable Growth in EU7.Circular Economy in EU and abroadDuring the project, both participating students and teachers will follow physical workshops and MOOC on-line courses and will be given guides and information materials so that they get well- prepared before the real-time Virtual Reality game playing. The aim of the workshops is to familiarize themselves with the innovative and non-traditional learning tools which are being applied in the non-formal learning while the aim of the on-line courses is to prepare themselves on the topics that will discuss during the game. These seven topics have been carefully selected as they are trending in the daily life of the students and will also have an added value on their perspective as European citizens. Apart from the direct effect on the students in terms of enriching their skills, attitudes, knowledge and their European identity, the project seeks to influence the teachers as well by exposing them to new, innovating learning models. The project identifies and covers the need for accelerating the digitalization in the education field through an innovative way by providing an inclusive, costless and open tool for the teachers to use in their classrooms. However, the project does not target only the students and their teachers, but it aims to affect all possible stakeholders in the education and training field to acquire such digitalized methods of learning and include non-formal learning tools on their educational procedures. The consortium of the project consists of 8 partners, among which are Experts in the field on non-formal education and the educational activity of the simulation, Schools of secondary level from 4 countries, an SME expert in the digital tools of VR and the Laboratory on Bioeconomy and Sustainable Growth of the University of Piraeus, as an expert in the topics of sustainable growth, environmental behavior. From the project 100 students and 20 teachers from 4 EU member states will be directly benefited and engaged on the development of the module and/or will participate on the testing phase of the intellectual outputs. As all partners are from different countries and have a variety of professional backgrounds, they will bring to the project their expertise, their knowledge of good practices from their national education system ending up in outputs and materials that can – and hopefully will – be broadly used at European level. The project will develop methodology and material for an affordable and flexible way to acquire new skills, advance careers and deliver quality educational experiences for both teachers and students."

Covid health crisis isn’t over yet, but one of the lessons that our countries may already learn from it is the need for increasing European unity. When dealing with global health and/or environmental issues such as climate change, the best answers won’t be national ones : youth of today will have to address those challenges together in the future, at an – at least – European scale.« Green morning Europe » project combines this aim (collaboration, discussion and searching solutions about our common environmental issues) and what we consider as a great tool to achieve it : radio medium. The synergy created by comparing contrasting cultures will stimulate the necessary understanding and cooperation to support this process.5 schools will be participating in the project representing different areas of Europe : France, Portugal (Azores islands), Germany, Italy and Estonia. For two years there will be five transnational visits involving about four hundred students and accompanying staff members. Specific attention will be paid to special needs students, who will be involved in the project and, for some of them, in transnational visits.Even though from geographically contrasting regions, the schools involved in the project are sharing the same needs - all of them tackling issues related to change -, sharing a lot of common environmental issues – transportation of food or the effects of climate change for example -, and already working on radio creation at school as a tool to open their students to the outside. Students and teachers will communicate and create together through the radio medium. Sound clips, reports, interviews, songs, surveys, and programs will be co-produced by the project's members. The main objective of this project is to produce a long-term radio cooperation between schools from distinct European member states. The final product will be a radio network integrated into the respective curriculae of the participating schools, teacher training colleges, on an open source dedicated website.The participating schools will be investigating the paths and necessary skills involved in journalism, media in general, through topics for the sound productions or broadcasts related to our common environmental issues (transportation, energy, farming, food, climate change, waste recycling, evolution of the professions in the future…) in order to boost a real international and intercultural dialogue. Radio will enable the use of many communication and cross-disciplinary skills without requiring heavy or expensive equipments, thus mobilising both language proficiency, oral expression, media education, ICT skills, teamwork, autonomy and initiative. The result of the cooperation for the students will be improved skills and consciousness about European citizenship and the necessity of the formulation of common responses to environmental issues, which will be the great challenge of the millenium. The project is also aimed for our students to gain confidence that they will be able to travel, exchange, speak, study, work, in another area than their own. For the teachers, there will be long-term effects : improved skills in sound creation, media education, innovative teaching methods, real consideration of climate issues in education, and special needs students support.Due to the distance between schools and the necessity for differenciation because of cultural and social differences, there will be an emphasis on blended learning. Integrated blended learning materials will be produced, which can be used throughout Europe. Since the lingua franca will be English, the students will obviously be communicating their ideas on school, local, national and European themes in English during the transnational visits. Radio is one of the reasons why our schools wanted to work together and to get to know each other better. This media being our common tool and main mean of communication in this project, it will also be the key mean of dissemination of this European project, thanks to our own productions, but also the associated partners, media and radios which will relay our project in the partnership's countries.This project will offer all interested parties in the schools (school management, parents, teachers, students, included special needs students) the opportunity to gain a greater insight into and understanding of European citizenship and an increased consciousness that the climate issues are nothing but common ones, and as such need to be addressed together. The European Commission’s goal is for Europe to be the first climate neutral continent by 2050. It is our students who will take the citizens’ responsibilities in this enormous effort seriously and will work together to shape the future. With this project, we want to set them up for this great task.

"For many years now, the European Section of Le Dantec high school has been organizing field trips to British national parks in the aim of studying the environmental impact of tourism on sensitive and protected areas. The educational team is made up of four teachers whose areas of expertise are English, geology/biology and physics (CLIL). Since 2013, the field trips have resulted in video clips or reports in English filmed by I-pads and not only internally broadcast in the high school but also in other European secondary schools via a Web-TV. Since 2016, the 16-year-old students majoring in science have been given the opportunity to present their “TPE” (tutored personal projects) in English. This work is part of the Baccalaureate examination. In October 2016, we decided to go to the Azores. One of the teachers from Felix Le Dantec high school made contact with a teacher from Domingos Rebelo high school in Ponta Delgada. This first experience permitted to initiate genuine cooperation between the French and Portuguese students who had to make video reports about the environmental issues encountered during our field outings. This successful experience was multidimensional: European collaboration between the two foreign teams showed the neccessity of using English as lingua franca. During our stay, many students of both nationalities improved their English skills and showed greater confidence in speaking in front of a camera. French and Azorean students as well as teachers, forged ties of friendship. The investigated environmental issues fall within the French and Portuguese curriculums and cannot but help enrich studies. The confrontation of the various scientific approaches and the making of scenarios were fruitful. In the same way, the sharing of different teaching methods gave rise to innovative practices. We now feel prepared to further develop and formalize this exchange within the framework of ERASMUS+. We need the support of ERASMUS+ for several reasons: Give a more European nature to the projects of Le Dantec European Section in Lannion and Domingos Rebelo high school in Ponta Delgada. Build relationships between the Azores and Brittany, two peripheral regions in Europe. Financially support the project to enable all motivated students - regardless of their social and economic backgrounds - to take part. Develop the dynamism in openness within Europe with a new partnership between two educational institutions. Develop cooperation among European teachers having different teaching and learning pedagogies. Disseminate our experience with the European teaching staff and hoping, in return, to receive feedback to allow us to improve ourselves and make our motto more meaningful : ""Discover, Learn, Communicate, Enjoy"" (appearing on our logo, see attached file)."

Biodiversity – the extraordinary variety of ecosystems, species and genes that surround us – is not only important in its own right, it also provides our society with a wide range of ecosystem services upon which we depend, such as food, freshwater, pollination, protection against floods, etc... However, biodiversity is in crisis. In Europe, almost a quarter of wild species are now threatened with extinction and the majority of ecosystems are degraded to the point where they are no longer able to deliver their valuable services. This degradation represents enormous social and economic losses for the EU. Key drivers of biodiversity loss, such as habitat change, overexploitation of natural resources, the introduction and spread of invasive alien species and climate change, have increased, offsetting the positive effects of actions to stem biodiversity loss.The aim of the project is to raise and develop students‘ awareness of plant biodiversity and activities focused on preventing or reducing its loss through a combination of virtual events and practical outdoor research activities with the use of Pl@ntNET mobile application. The project will employ methods of exploratory pedagogy based on virtual events and practical research activities suitable for students aged 16-19 with graphical interfaces that help to overcome language barriers and hide potential basic computational complexity. This educational approach combines classroom learning, virtual demonstrations, nature visits and online cooperation, which enable students to build on mutual experience through teacher mediation and in the context of European school network. Teaching activities will be carried out by experts in the field of environment and teaching. Students with a lack of opportunities (disabled) aged 16-19 will also be involved in the project under the guidance of special needs teachers. The approaches aimed at problem-solving will encourage students to find solutions to prevent or reduce biodiversity loss, which can also find application in students’ everyday lives including nature protection. Students will get to know methods used in their own countries, compare individual approaches and find out about methods of the future. The aim of the Pl@ntNET project is not intended to compete with existing environmental education curricula. Instead, it aims to provide extra-value online tools which complement existing approaches and encourage the cooperation between European schools while developing ICT skills in students. In order to maximize the impact of the project objectives, ICT-based learning activities are designed to be delivered through existing school curriculum channels, such as field education or extra-value methods which enhance learning process, and not as separate learning modules. The use of existing school curricula facilitates the adoption of proposed educational methods even after the completion of the project. The proposed activities will be verified through the implementation of the project by involving teachers and pupils in experiential learning activities, enabling students to use the tools developed in practical research meetings and to work with students in other countries through a network of schools that exchange experiences and build awareness of the international character of environmental sustainability issues. Finally, Pl@ntNET aims to support the learning process by providing recommendations on best practices aimed at both teachers and students with a focus on teaching, teacher associations and policy makers with a regard to the smooth integration of the proposed solutions into the instructional processes and their dissemination through on-line portal services. This comprehensive, vertical implementation approach, which addresses all interested parties in education, will further facilitate the adoption of the proposed methods after the completion of the work plan.

In this time of loss of values, great difficulties and financial uncertainty, young people needed help and a guidance for their future life. Everybody dreams a successful career and school education has a fundamental role in giving our students the right knowledge and skills to enter the labor market. Cyprus, Italy, Poland,Portugal and Czech Republic joined together in order to provide our students, aged 14-19, with career guidelines and an entrepreneurial education in a European dimension. Each school had 4-7 pupils, directly participated in each mobility plus a large team of students and teachers beyond that who helped to prepare the tasks ( PPt presentations, videos, etc.) for the 5 LTTAs as well as the subsequent distribution of the learning outcomes. We especially emphasized on the mobilities of those pupils who, faced financial difficulties and have never had a chance to go abroad. The project aimed to: give our students a guidance to explore job opportunities in Europe and how to apply for a job, given them an entrepreneurship education that can provide them with the knowledge and skills for an entrepreneurial success in order to turn ideas into actions and gave them the opportunity of creating a job, inspire them to be more self confidence, in order to get the jobs they really want to pursue in their life, improved their English language skills and their ITCs build and develop the 21st century skills: critical thinking, problem solving, research practices, creativity, imagination, innovation, planning, initiative, leadership, teamwork. In order to achieve these goals, a training program on career guidance and entrepreneurship held by international experts and was fulfilled during the 5 LTTAs. Our focus was on lectures, workshops, company visits and meetings with entrepreneurs. The methods chosen aimed at transferring knowledge, inspiration, and motivation, in fact all the activities were focused on pupils, enabling them to explore new ideas and put them to good use, to be innovate and creative. Learning by doing will be predominant as the interaction and communication between pupils and teachers, experts and entrepreneurs from 5 different countries of the EU play a very important role. They worked in international teams and were encouraged to widely use ITC through web searches, used of softawares, applications, etc. All those practiced and used fostered their social, language and technological competences and prepared them as much as possible for their future career. The results we tried to achieved and to produce were: an international e-guide for entrepreneurship that could help trainers and users in what to know and learn in the process of how setting up a national/international business. - a glossary was created to include of technical business words and five national business plans and a sample of an international company -e-diary a detailed documentation of the project L/T/TA with video and photo for the website.- Attending the training program and working on the preparation of the above outputs, students gained a deep insight into occupational opportunity and were acquired with the abilities to start companies. This provided our students instill trust and added a positive impact on their attitude towards their future lives. The e-guide will be a very useful resource tool for the future dissemination, as it can be integrated in the curriculum of the schools. This ensures that the European entrepreneurial spirit will be passed on to future pupil-generations in the subsequent years. All the material produced will be available on the project website, pictures and comments about the project will be posted on Facebook and Instagram and the results will also be published on E-twinning and on the Erasmus+ Platform. The project will be also advertised through leaflets/ brochures and some paper copies of the e-guide that will be distributed to schools, universities, companies and associations for the dissemination.