Career orientation for the European Job MarketMany firms operate globally and employee mobility is a prerequisite. Students must be prepared to be mobile, adaptable and continually learning. There is a need for them to get to know the work place in other countries. Six European countries, Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Portugal and Turkey, with 280 pupils, have carried out this project. All of the teachers have experience in instructing vocational preparation. We supported our students entirely according to their individual capabilities and skills so that after their schooling, they are prepared for the job market. We were able to avoid premature school leaving by helping the students realize their talents and abilities and developing these.Exploring the career training environment and comparing one’s own competence profile with the requirements for training in European businesses are important prerequisites for career choice and a successful transition to the business and work world. With the aid of the career choice passport, pupils were able to come to terms with their own personal strengths (What can I do?) and with their interests, goals and commitments (What do I want?)The following actions were undertaken: Compiling a project homepage, work with the career choice passport, preparing presentations about companies in the partner countries, compiling CV and job applications, visiting companies, the creation of an international job exchange market and skilled craft activities in the work experience field.Our pupils were motivated to apply their talents in the working environment. When pupils discover their own abilities this boosts their self-confidence and self-esteem. If we can achieve this goal, then lower grade students can participate together with higher grade students in projects without fear of inferiority. In particular, lower grade students must be encouraged so that with their abilities (e.g. in skilled trades) they can present themselves with complete confidence.With this project we prepared our pupils for the labour market and gave them the opportunity of work experience in other European countries. We want to equip our students for a life and career in a globally responsible Europe. This European dimension lied at the heart of our project and our schools.

"The Project ""Communication"" runs 24 months and is put into effect by six Schools from Germany (comprehensive School), Poland (elementary School), Croatioa (Grammar School), Bulgaria (Grammar School), Portugal (Grammar School) and Spain (Grammar School). Communication keeps every form of society together, from the wandering families of the Stone Age to our highly networked Europe, where people from very different cultural and linguistic backgrounds communicate. Modern day students are confronted with completely new communicative challenges. Monolingualism is no longer the reality of life. It hasn`t been for a long time, but it seems that it`s no sooner than now that we are beginning to understand. It is the Goal of this project to give the students what they need to cope with these challenges and to foster a state of mind that considers this challenge as an opportunity. This project aims at fostering multilingualism, which is far more than simply learning grammar and the rules of language. Communication shall be looked at in its entirety: the combination of language, gesture, facial expression and alternative forms of communication such as dancing, music and much more. Comprehension of communication helps fighting prejudicedness and bringing forward open-mindedness. The broad concept of the project enables the participation of almost every student only depending on their wish to participate and contribute. Whereas a normal School exchange is more likely to appeal to well-performing students, this project gives every sudent the opportunity to take part. Students with migrational background for example are the center when it comes to showing the participants aspects of their native language. Further goals of the project are- promotion of language of minorities. - integration of children with migrational background- analysis of foreign language teaching- improvement of language learning- open mindedness towards minorities- open mindedness towards people with communicative deficits During the 24-month course of the project every participating school will be visited by four students plus teachers of each of the partners' school. That means that in total 24 students will participate in each project meeting. The students will be hosted by local families and this way they will get in touch with the local culture and will have to communicate. This form of communication will also be necessary during the meetings, when students from six different countries with six different native languages work on the project. The contribution of the students is not limited to the meetings but also, even for the greater part, takes place at their schools in between the meetings. They will prepare presentations, language- and travel guides, language games, films and tutorials, brochures, plays and music during lessons and clubs. The results of this work will be published and presented during the meetings via E-Books or videos. During and after the project the participating students and teachers shall act as multipliers. Students have great influence on their peer group. The open minded attitude and the unprejudicedness will have an impact on their social contacts. Teachers can use their newly learned teaching techniques in their lessons, in the attitude towards communicative challenges and gain a new approach to the teaching of foreign languages. This can reach as far as some changing in the school curriculum. A shift of paradigm may only be a long-term goal, but it is possible to change bit by bit to come closer to the overall goal: Multilinguistic communication."

Environmentally friendly Europe - the future begins now!The idea and the application for this project came amid the Corona Crisis . Nature has proved its power, unraveling how feeble humanity really is, and the vast degree to which we are dependent on the environment we live in. Following the return to our usual routines, we cannot forget what we have learned, meaning we need to co-exist with Nature and act in accordance with it. Environmental protection is now as relevant as ever. Responsibility for the environment and fellow humans is vital for our existence, as environmental issues are limitless.The unjust treatment of the Mother Earth has been debated for decades, yet little has been done about it. But it is not too late: our students see the dangers but fail to come up with their own initiatives. As project coordinators, we want the students to evolve from passive observers and become active players in the fight for the environment. We all share one, single planet, Seas and Oceans are international as we all breathe the same air. Hence, we want to create an international project, underlining the environmental issued need to be combat collectively as a wider society – a project, where young people exchange experiences across borders and generate impulses. The main goal is to give the students increasing responsibility as they grow to become active environmental activists. They will be encouraged to take concrete contributions striving towards the reduction of the environmental burden.Our project aims for 150 students (age 12-16) from 6 countries to work together, in unison with teachers, school communities, families and participating institutions.The first focus of this project is nature. The students will learn the different landscapes of their countries. In Germany, they will follow wolf tracks, learn about the forest as an eco-system and appreciate biodiversity.Through the second focus of this project, students will debate about energy, the pros and cons of alternative energy sources and visit a biofuel plant in Denmark. In addition, they will build a windmill out of recyclable materials.As a third topic, students will research and discuss their countries’ water balance. In Portugal, a country with an extensive coastline, students will examine sand searching for Microplastics. To build up on their findings, students will visit a sewage-treatment facility.During the fourth focus, students will explore the topic of waste in Rhodos, Greece. A recycling center will be visited, where students will participate in the “Old becomes New” workshop. They will learn to develop little daily habits, which help avoiding generating waste and increase recycling. Every school will then organize exchange markets.The fifth focus of this project will be set on food consumption in Turkey. Students will learn ways to avoid food waste and will visit a “Bio-company” that turns organic waste into fertilizer. The School-STEM-Club will present an app developed to control the watering of plants.As a sixth and final focus, students will visit Poland to create guidelines for a sustainable school, basing on their experiences and knowledge gained throughout the project.The project should follow the subsequent methodical steps: discover, share knowledge, take proactive measures, and use STEM, all supported by various handcraft techniques. It is expected that as a direct result of the project, schools, as well as the mindset of the students, will transition towards further consideration of sustainability in the daily life, while students’ sense of responsibility will be strengthened and a proactive attitude developed. A tangible outcome will be the guidelines created by the students themselves, outlining concrete recommendations on running a sustainable school. These will be created in German, English, as well as each country’s official language. Following the completion of the project, all experiences will be shared and discussed between the participating schools as the relationships will be nurtured though the eTwinning platform alongside a reporting system being put in place.In the past few months, we have discovered the terrifying power of a minuscule virus to turn the daily lives of billions of people upside down. An empty plastic bottle, an unnecessarily lit lamp, a brown banana that lands in the trash can be just as minuscule. Nature has warned us. Now it is our turn and that of the students. The action must be taken.The future starts now!

Diversity and Integration We find ourselves at a time when refugees are fleeing to Europe in order to escape war and oppression. Most of the students involved in the project realized that the integration of refugees and migrants is essential for a peaceful coexistence. Our students became aware of their global responsibility and understand that nationalistic politics can provide no solution in a globalized world. Our students celebrated with the refugee children in integration classes and assisted them with learning the German language. Reciprocally they learnt about the culture of the new children.The students should understand that in the professional world international dependency exists and that people from different cultural backgrounds must work together.During our project meetings we visited very different firms. There the pupils learned about the international dependency of the firms and several pupils could envisage working in another country. In this project we wanted to eliminate prejudice against foreigners. Our short term training class and working activities certainly assisted in this.Working together in international groups provided the children with lots of fun and prejudices and generalization were forgotten.This project was conducted by six schools from Austria, Croatia, Germany, Poland, Portugal and Turkey, together with 300 students. The cooperation was excellent, all pupils worked on presentations, plays and texts.We wanted to compare the work of the different schools to discover how the best possible integration of refugees and migrants can be achieved in our schools. In the Integration Classes the Europaschule Gladenbach presented the work to the partner schools, we demonstrated how we worked with migrants and of course learned about the work of our partner schools.Activities were: Creating a project homepage, immigration and emigration in our countries. Preparing a presentation of the work with migrants within schools and society, preparing presentations on culture in the partner countries, compiling curriculum vitae for migrants, visiting companies, handicrafts and cooking.Our students were encouraged to integrate with pupils of migrant backgrounds and to help one another.Our secondary school pupils from Realschule (not so much Hauptschule) even with migrant background, were able to work with grammar school pupils from partner schools.This project enabled us to educate most pupils to become cosmopolitan people and many students had the opportunity of visiting our partner schools.Our aim was to prepare our students for living and working in a Europe that is well aware of its global responsibility. This European dimension characterized our project and our schools.

"LET'S BUILD BRIDGES ! To reach our goals with more self-confidence thinking about the possibilities in Europe. This is how one could summarize the objective of our project. The students should take more responsibility for their own lives and believe more in their own strengths. For this reason, we, teachers from six European schools (Poland, Portugal, Croatia, Latvia, Germany and the Czech Republic), have joined forces to support students aged 11 to 17 in a joint project to discover and try out their talents and abilities through the exchange of knowledge and experience. Because active, motivated people with European life experience have higher chances of success in life. Our common goal was to teach the students how to build bridges - bridges to people from other backgrounds, cultures, to people of older generations and to people with different stories and history. In order for a bridge to be stable, you have to make careful preparations together. You need a plan, the terrain needs to be tested, foundations poured, and then piers set. Only then can a bridge be built from one bank to the other. That's why our students should first get to know themselves, strengthen their self-confidence and discover their strengths. How was this to be done? In extracurricular projects, contacts were established with local institutions where students gained new experiences. This was done in the form of volunteer work and social commitment for example, by helping elderly people, by supporting the local community, but also in sports clubs or youth centers. These valuable experiences were shared with friends from other European countries and passed on to them. With the help of the game ""Great Journey of Discovery"" (based on the 7 steps to increase effectiveness for young people by Sean Covey) the students should discover their own talents. They should use the ""Share your talent"" activity to present the discovered talents to others and motivate them to also embark on the ""Great Journey of Discovery"". The students were asked to share their (newly discovered) talents in workshops and they filmed their experiences for ""tutorials"" and presented them on the project's homepage and on our Twinspace site. Another goal of the project was to strengthen and expand digital and media abilities and to promote foreign language skills among teachers and students. Language tests were conducted, language diaries were kept and certificates were taken. It was important for the participating teachers to learn about differences in education and school systems, to benefit from each other and to take ""best practices"" back to their own schools. The project also involved the school institution, families of students and local partners. The students who participated in the project belong to the secondary level. There were students who were directly involved in the project and other people who have been indirectly part of the project: Pupils, but also teachers and extracurricular partners (together about 400). In order to achieve the above-mentioned goals, we carried out activities for 30 months and produced handicraft as well as media products, e.g. ""tutorials"", multimedia presentations, films, commercials, photo exhibitions. There were 5 learning, teaching or training activities in 5 partner countries where they presented what they experienced and learned in their own countries and taught what they learned to the partners from the other countries. Unfortunately, the Covid19 pandemic changed the schedule a lot: the project had to be extended by 6 months, Germany could not attend the 5th meeting and the 6th meeting had to be held virtually. Progress was measured, analyzed and evaluated regularly; necessary changes were made and documented. Dissemination was carried out as planned, but with data protection limitations. The results of the project were partly integrated into the school curricula of the partner schools, and the contacts gained were further cultivated and used in new projects and partnerships. If a bridge is stable and strong, it leads over the widest rivers, over the deepest valleys and lasts for a very long time. We have built European bridges together with our students!"