"***General****The H.E.A.L. (Health Education And Learning) Erasmus+ project derived mostly by the need of the applicant school to address Early School Leaving, as a minority school with Roma students. However, the other partner schools also face extreme social exclusion problems, due to poverty, migration and refugee, issues inherent into their social environment and location.We chose Health Education as a means to address these problems, because it deals with psychological well-being, malnutrition, obesity, dependencies etc. We thought that this was the only way to establish a secure and pleasant environment at school and to shield our students against every difficulty. So, after a thorough analysis we concluded at the following objectives: 1. To introduce innovative methods like Project Based Learning (PBL) 2. To train teachers with in-field-application 3. To confront health issues caused by poverty, malnutrition, dependencies etc., 4. To prevent social exclusion and enhance social cohesion 5. To address foreign language inadequacies. These 5 main goals were linked directly with the following predefined Erasmus+ axes: SCHOOL EDUCATION: Supporting schools to tackle early school leaving (ESL) and disadvantage. HORIZONTAL: Social inclusion SCHOOL EDUCATION: Promoting the acquisition of skills and competencesThis project involved around 400 teachers and 4000 students which were facing different kind of social inclusion problems. The most deprived were located in Bulgaria, Greece and Lithuania, while students in Turkey, Italy and Poland also faced problems of integration due to migration and refugee situations. In order to achieve our objectives, we designed 7 sub-projects to be carried out on the basis of Project Based Learning. These projects involved teachers and pupils for roughly a 3-month period each. The project titles and the countries responsible for each were the following: 1. Knowing my partners (Bulgaria) 2. Health as a cultural and social good (Greece) 3. Interpersonal relationships (Turkey) 4. Dependencies (Italy) 5. Natural Life, Exercise and Healthy Lifestyle (Lithuania) 6. Healthy diet, Health and Consumption (Poland) 7. Social emotional development, self-confidence - skill development (Bulgaria)***Covid19 impact***Like all aspects of social life on the European continent, the HEAL program was severely affected by the outbreak of the new coronavirus, as well. As a result, the last two sub-projects, namely ""Healthy Eating, Health and Consumption"" in Poland and ""Social emotional development, self-confidence - skill development"" in Bulgaria, could not be implemented through physical mobility.Instead, the children and the educators decided to join forces and they created a book with traditional recipes which was pint in paper and distributed to our schools via classic mail. In this way the hours of our involuntary confinement at home became hours of creation and action. The children asked their parents, experimented and decided which recipes best represent the traditions and food culture of their countryAlso, in order not to lose momentum, online lessons were held, as well as two seminars according to the originally planned titles, so that the teachers do not lag behind in their further training.***Evaluation and results****Generally, all tasks had been equally delegated to the members in advance, while cooperation was based on the notion of friendship, unreserved acceptance of cultural differences and constant communication through social media and educational platforms like e-Twinning. The results of the H.E.A.L. project were evaluated with both quality and quantitive quality assessments on an ongoing basis. The main beneficiaries were the students, who beyond the ""per se"" acquisition of certain knowledge in fields as Math, Science, Literature etc, also improved their foreign language skills, their knowledge about Health subjects and other countries and their cultural heritage. Also, the teachers made touch with new methods of teaching and other educational systems, they improved their English and learned how to implement Erasmus projects. Then, the student's parents improved their parental skills, learning about how to take better care of their children and also coming in touch with the common European heritage. Lastly, local communities were involved by local press, tv and radio programs.Participants were able to raise their awareness about healthy lifestyle (nutrition, physical activity, etc) and to confront with psychological issues like depression and self-confidence. Teaching material was produced and is available in different platforms for future use, while the use of the Project method enabled students to help one another, giving them independence both in implementation and assessment phases. They learned how to cooperate and how to take responsibility for the results of the work of whole group."

This project focuses on creativity and creative writing within the context of seven primary schools n Europe. Creative writing activities, combined with appropriate teaching methods and techniques for supporting young learners will be applied and are expected to have positive effects on the atmosphere of the class and enhance creativity to young learners. Through sharing and interaction, common products will be created and there will be an intercultural dialogue, with the children changing attitudes, learning to respect diversity. Nowadays, in multicultural Europe, we have to combat racism and xenophobia and at the same time boost the self-esteem of all children, especially those who are at risk to experience failure at school. Through this project we will tackle the aforementioned issues enhancing the European dimension of the school curriculum. Through this partnership, our pupils will engage in cross-curricular projects incorporating Language, ICT, Art, Music, History, Religion and Geography. In this way, they will improve their research, communication and presentation skills and realize the common mutual tradition with the other European partners. The activities will be structured to accommodate pupils of all ages, abilities, multiple intelligences and ethnic backgrounds. This will happen through various techniques:- Reading and listening to texts;- Dramatizing;- Analyzing the main elements of stories;- Thinking of characteristics of main heroes and villains;- Creating new stories, poems and works of art using motives for inspiration from literature, famous paintings, traditional tales.Pupils will find out the importance of creativity in the life of people around Europe and simultaneously they will discover issues about the mentality of these people living in our multicultural Europe. Therefore, an awareness of the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity within Europe will be promoted and as a result, this awareness will strengthen the values towards combating racism, prejudice and xenophobia. Also, the engagement of all students in meaningful activities according to their unique potentials, will boost their self-esteem towards the prevention of early leaving from school.Throughout the two years, common products will be created, such as poems about European values, fairy tales, songs, digital stories using a common wiki. This web2 tool has been chosen as it is considered very effective for interactive writing. This project will use the eTwinning platform for communication and publishing of the final products and as this partnership started as an eTwinning project, we will continue and develop this communication.Three short-term teaching and training activities are planned to be organized in this project:-In March 2018 in Greece, In October 2018 in Spain and in April 2019 in Lithuania. During these meetings, three students from each school with two teachers accompanying them will take part in creative writing workshops towards the creation of common products, such as digital stories, songs, poems, fairy tales.The transnational meetings will be planned according to the needs of the participants and the issues that come up during the implementation.The planned meetings will be the following:- In October 2017 in Poland where issues of evaluation, dissemination and communication will be clarified and a concrete plan of the meetings of the year will be designed. Representative teachers will be engaged in workshops in the use of Web 2 tools and the methodologies and approaches to be followed for the project.In May 2018 in Portugal, where evaluation of the activities of the first year and planning of the activities of the second year will take place. In May 2019 there will be the last transnational meeting in Romania where the material of the two years will be put together and a book of the partnership will be published with the most representative products and ideas. Also, the final data concerning evaluation and dissemination will be discussed.The whole project has a specific plan for evaluation and dissemination with questionnaires, meetings, seminars, publishing and using educational Web tools in order to boost the project's impact on teachers, parents, students and communities at local, regional, national and European level.

<< Background >>The effects of climate change were felt in every corner of the world in 2020, from unprecedented wildfires across the United States to the extreme heat of Siberia. It is quite obvious that climate change impact has global dimensions. 2021 must be the year of climate action – “the make-or-break year,” according to United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, who expressed the need for immediate change at the launch of the World Meteorological Organization's report on the State of the Global Climate 2020, which highlighted accelerating climate change indicators and worsening impacts (WMO, 2021). The reaction to the current global recession caused by pandemic COVID-19 may hold the potential to a dramatic change towards the implementation of policies needed to mitigate climate change. Namely, opportunities to put society on a greener path are highly sought for, across a range of scales and dimensions. One of these is education, which has largely moved to the digital world. This change has both negative and positive elements, the most important being that children are losing interaction and socialization with others. On the other hand, we can build on the circumstances and the renewed awareness that we can only raise by lifting others, in a systemic vision. The EcoPodcasts project is therefore proposing to harness digital opportunities for the adoption of a social-ecologically conscious and sustainable daily life for students as future citizens and agents of positive change.Additionally, the EcoPodcasts project come to in line with some of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). More specifically, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has as a core a set of sustainable development goals (SDGs). No one of them can be implemented alone, and for instance it is recognised that eradicating poverty and other deprivations must be accompanied by strategies to improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth, while tackling climate change and preserving oceans and forests. Therefore, through the EcoPodcasts project, we aim to drive school education to adopt innovative and interactive learning methods, while at the same time students explore ways to adopt healthy and environmentally friendly habits, through technology and activity-based learning. In any case, education has a more that ever important role to play in creating a more sustainable society by shaping critically engaged citizens who act for environmental protection.However, according to our preliminary research we have identified the following needs and gaps: - Lack of effective strategies, practices and tools for delivering innovative, action driven CCE: In general teachers face various difficulties to apply innovative competence-based teaching in their settings as they are not trained in such practices (Council, 2018). Also, they do not feel confident to teach for climate change due to the absence of clarity about the most effective teaching strategies (Monroe, 2019) along with the existence of a vast number of different approaches, methods and resources for CCE that creates further confusion. Also, they lack knowledge and tools to monitor and assess the development of competences related to climate change education.- Lack of knowledge and skills in teaching through CCE and CS: Although there has been a growth in the popularity of CCE and CS programmes over the last decade, their educational potential remains largely unexploited and as result there is a lack of teacher training programmes and specific teaching and learning resources on NBS and CS that restrict teachers from understanding and incorporating them in their schools (Schoolnet, 2020).<< Objectives >>Considering all the above mentioned, the EcoPodcasts project aims to enable children to take an active role in transforming society in reacting to and offer proactive, resilient solutions to the most catastrophic impacts of climate change, and make them active ambassadors of such message, finally having a positive impact on the sustainable way of living. The EcoPodcasts will include podcasts developed by students not only for their classmates, but also for their families and other adults who want to adopt sustainable habits in a fun and truthful way, through the eyes of children. Several empirical studies of environmental education revealed successful child-to-parent learning results (Leeming et al., 1997; Maddox et al., 2011; Boudet et al., 2016; Williams et al., 2017), as the level of trust that exists between parents and their children is high, which is not always the case between two adults. At the same time, children's views are generally not influenced by any entrenched political ideology, which makes them real agents of positive change. Furthermore, through its activities, children will not only become more involved in advocating for their own sustainable future, but they will also become more effective advocates and future citizens. Moreover, the other important project’s target group is teachers who will gain valuable tools and guidance on how to put in place environmental education practices through podcasts, storytelling and activity-based learning with the aim to influence behavioral change both for students and their families. Thus, through innovative educational resources, teachers will be able to interact with students and local communities and shape a more sustainable future all together.In general, the target is to tighten the gap between the many warnings and recommendations available through the media, on what to do to counteract climate change (often sounding like hopeless, generating stress and anxiety, or a drastic change of lifestyle, which many people can see as scary or impossible), and the real-life, cost-effective (and fun) options are available at community scale. As a measure to counteract such gap, we propose to rediscover the relevance of creativity and personality of local communities, without losing the systemic vision. Information passively received (e.g. through reading on internet), might not grant engagement. Instead, a feeling of anxiety or inevitability could grow, if not paired with the realization of practical actions.<< Implementation >>Taking into consideration the aforementioned, teachers are in need of more information, competences, confidence and “easy to use” resources in delivering CCE. What is more, the partnership involves 3 schools in order to maximise both the recognition of existing needs and the application of podcasting for climate change education, as well as the recognition of the effectiveness of the project's techniques. Reflecting on the students, more and more schools are incorporating podcasting into their classrooms because it encourages innovative thinking and collaboration. One of the main reasons is that podcasts allow students to access information whenever they want. At the same time, unlike traditional pedagogical strategies, podcasting enables new strategies such as guest lectures, interviews, etc. It encourages students to develop their own podcasts, improves their listening skills and enhances learning through a highly entertaining way. For a generation that is adept at handling technology, downloading podcasts requires only basic technical knowledge.In relation to the partnership, all partners are highly interested in the objectives of this project and expect to address their respective needs. Specifically, all schools participating in the consortium (Angliyska ezikova gimnaziya “Geo Milev”-Burgas, 1st primary school of Alexandria, and Agrupamento de Escolas Camilo Castelo Branco) expect to gain new knowledge and practices towards integrating environmental education, community science and the use of podcasting. Malta Girl Guides, which promotes environmental education, expects through this project to expand its knowledge on ways of tackling climate change and provide more specialized support to its target groups. UniSalento runs a Marine Protected Area which is an active core for hands-on activities of environmental education are regularly carried out, involving environmental journalism for the mainstreaming of messages related to CC and human impacts on the environment. UOM, which is a Greek university working on innovation and education, expects to address its need for acquiring specialized knowledge in climate change and be able to disseminate this knowledge in the Greek education community. REACH, aims to address its needs in relation to acquiring new knowledge and scientific data for improving its capacity related to environmental education and innovative training material, such as learning through podcasts and activity-based processes.<< Results >>The EcoPodcasts project will develop a holistic, innovative, and highly engaging educational programme for primary and secondary schools wishing to implement environmental education and cultivate active citizens. Our project will mainly focus on the production of the above-mentioned outcomes and results:- The Ecopodcasts curriculum (PR1) aims to support students to develop the necessary 21st century skills (e.g. digital literacy, problem solving, energy, health education and ecological awareness) that will turn them into active citizens. Over the lifetime of the project and based on experiential learning approaches such as design thinking and activity-based learning, the EcoPodcasts project aspires to motivate and engage more than 100 students from 5 European countries to use podcasting as a tool to discuss, reflect and take action for their local communities. Ultimately, students will produce more than 80 podcasts that will motivate more young people to take action and support their community.- The EcoPodcasts teachers training programme (PR2) that aims at supporting teachers to smoothly and effectively implement the project's curriculum. In particular, over the lifetime of the project, more than 200 teachers will be trained on the main elements of EcoPodcasts using various educational tools and materials: 8 educational podcasts, 7 online training modules and a repository of educational materials that will be available as open educational resources on the project platform.- The EcoPodcasts online platform (PR3) that aspires to create a pan-European online community consisting of more than 1000 teachers, students, schools, policy makers, parents and community stakeholders who support, contribute and participate in educational activities around sustainability by harnessing the power of podcasting.- The EcoPodcasts Resource Hub (PR4) which will be a practical and useful repository of more than 100 teaching and learning materials aimed at providing numerous, ready-to-use activities and digital resources that support the step-by-step implementation of each phase of the project's curriculum implementation.- A network that will be the synthesis link of the EcoPodcast (PR5) with the outside world, suggesting inspirational experiences and tools, inter-linking them in the online open access environment (like bloggers to follow, suggestions for reading on specific problems, identification of specific issues and solutions (e.g. floating orchards).The production of the above outputs will ultimately lead to the following long-term expected outcomes:- Support students in acquiring and developing 21st century skills and competencies such as critical thinking, problem solving, digital skills, media literacy and communication skills that will prepare them for their role as active citizens. They will increase their environmental awareness and will develop a sense of social responsibility. Furthermore, children will become more engaged in advocating for their own long-term sustainability, as well as more influential advocates and future citizens. - Enhancing teachers' professional development by supporting them to implement innovative teaching practices related to environmental education and providing them with tools, methodologies and ready-to-use materials. Teachers participating in the project will also be engaged to co-design the elements of the EcoPodcasts curriculum and then applying it with their students and communities that will contribute greatly to their professional development, by adding new skills in their teaching profiles and new methods.- Engaging students, teachers, schools, parents, community, and policy makers to create an ecosystem that exposes and encourages children to take initiative and become true agents of sustainable change at an early age, using the tools of podcasting.- Contribute to community development by building skills, opening mindsets and creating long-term partnerships.

"Holidays are anticipated and emotion-filled moments in the lives of children and adults. Every holiday is being prepared carefully and for a long time. It brings a positive emotion that mobilizes everyone for its realization. That is one of the reasons why we chose to work on ""Interactive holiday calendar in Europe"" The topics to be addressed by this project are connected with the different holidays, characterizing each partner country and the similarities and differences in their peculiarity, specificity and events. The problems to be discussed are connected with the identity of each country and its overall expression in the big European family. The project aims to help us avoid racial, ethnic and religious discrimination by understanding the lifestyle and traditions of all participating in the project countries. The project will be realized by elaborating and studying the holidays, the traditions of each partner organization, and the holidays will be considered on a seasonal basis. Activities to be done:1. To make an interactive calendar of the traditional holidays in Europe by classifying them into common traditional holidays and Seasonal holidays2. To familiarize everyone with the festive calendars of partner countries.3. To find the similarities and differences between the common holidays that unite us into a common family.4.To Make DVDs to illustrate the festive systems of the countries involved in the project.5.To create Project Recipe book which to contain recipes representing local/national cuisine of each of the participating in the project countries.6. To create Multi Media Phrase book containing common phrases related to traditional holidays and customs in the languages off all the participating countries and in English.7. To create a booklet with pictures representing national costumes and attributes used during traditional holidays in each country drawn by the students.8.To publish a newspaper presenting information for all the activities throughout the entire project.9.The following topics will be discussed during the project meetings Traditions. Holidays and customsCalendars and Holidays Traditions and ValuesTraditional folk cultureCurious rituals and customsHow public holidays and traditions affect pupils' educationThe end result will be to get to know each of the partner organizations through the most anticipated moments of all - the holidays. By getting to know the country's holidays, we can easily perceive everyone, understanding some of the features in their lifestyle, tradition, culture. Knowing the common and equal holidays of the partners will make us feel like a big family celebrating together.The target groups of this projects are students /aged 10-16/, teachers, parents and the local communities. All activities in the project will have direct involvement of pupils, both in gathering information, planning and preparing products, communicating with pupils from partner institutions and in presenting their findings to all members of the partnership.Throughout the project all pupils will be encouraged to evaluate the activities and provide feedback about their own and others contributions. Questionnaires will be designed for evaluating the project activities. Students will take part in project forums during which they will answer questions about the project activities and their own personal learning. We believe that by involving students in the project we let them make not only friends for life but also teach them tolerance, respect towards other cultures and nations, faith in their own possibilities. And that it allows eliminate aggression and violence from our communities. Engaging pupils in different forms of learning can prevent students from alienation, fight xenophobia, teach openness to new cultures and let them know about new lifestyles, languages.Teachers and parents will also be active participants in the project because they will be involved in all stages of its realization. They will also have the opportunity to learn about different holiday calendars, which will have a unifying function for the entire institution and the project implementation. We hope that it will enable us to cooperate in various fields and help to exchange our experience. We will take part in activities which can help us quickly and easily accept the different cultures and traditions and by knowing them to unite them with the help of the final products. Teachers will share good practices among Europe concerning school management, cultural issues and national traditions. All these could help teachers, students, parents and local public to be aware of the differences and improve the way of work. Families and representatives of the local community can attend the numerous events that we plan to organize in each school in order to promote and benefit from the project."

The HEALTHY projectwas based on the transdisciplinary approach and its aim was to design and to apply a program for pupils that will give them the opportunity to adopt a healthy lifestyle, starting from their schools, through physical education activities, while it will familiarize them with the European and ancient Greek culture through their participation in Greek ancient games and traditional European exercise games. The creation of this project was motivated by the fact that a considerable proportion of children in many European countries do not meet recommended levels of physical activity and they are engaged in sedentary behavior. . On the other hand, the ancient Greek civilization, as regards physical exercise and sport and their benefits, constitutes for health a valuable world heritage which must be conserved. By choosing the Greek ancient games, combining them with other European traditional games and incorporating them into the physical education classes we obtain both goals: (a) to motivate teachers and children towards alternative ways of physical activity, thus promoting a healthier life-style in an entertaining way and (b) to contribute at the familiarization and preservation of our European Culture. In this way the European Cultural heritage could function as a link that would bring people together, contributing to more cohesive societies through physical activities and healthier habits. For the fulfillment of all previous goals, the Helping Active Life through Targeting Healthy Youth (HEALTHY) project developed a new learning program, a Web Platform and a multimedia application with transdisciplinary approach, addressing issues such as exercise, counseling on good eating habits, chronic diseases prevention, history and culture. Through HEALTHY, PE teachers and TS will be able to achieve relevant and high quality skills and competences in designing appropriate programs for pupils that will be effective in motivating them to adopt new healthier lifestyles. At the same time, the project will contribute at the establishment of a timeless European culture through schooling. In conclusion, HEALTHY supports that today’s physical activity programs (exercise and games) must consider each schools’ facilities, eating habits and psychological attitudes in order to help them to adopt a healthier lifestyle. Additionally, it will raise awareness of the importance of Europe's cultural heritage in PE teachers and pupils through exercise-games based on traditional European and ancient Greek games.