Environmental Sustainability For Sustainable Schools: mobilities

Showing posts with label mobilities. Show all posts

May 2023 - Our last day in Lithuania was quite emotional. We met at the school to attend a workshop on the cycle of Carbon, which included a presentation from the school’s teachers and an observation of the traffic around the school.

After lunch, we all took part in a very interesting mind battle in groups. Each group could choose 7 questions regarding sustainability and had one minutes to answer each one of them. After this exciting activity, we all went home to get ready for the farewell party.

At 6 o’clock in the evening, we all met again at the school. The party was amazing, many students and teachers from the school took part singing, dancing and preparing games and activities such us making dresses with recycled paper. Families brought wonderful food from home, and we had an opportunity to try lots of different Lithuanian dishes.

We all got our Erasmus certificates and at the end we learned traditional Lithuanian dances. A wonderful evening we will never forget.

May 2023 - We met at school a little later today after a very long day yesterday. We have spent the day in the Rumsiskes Open-air Folk Museum, which is one of the largest in Europe. The Museum presents the mode of life, works, and traditions of peasants and townspeople of all Lithuanian ethnographic area around the 19th century. We could visit the inside of farms, and old buildings and vegetable gardens, as well as working mills and forges. We could also wander around the forests, meadows and hills. Furthermore, we discovered the place, taking part in a scavenger hunt full of interesting puzzles to solve exploring the different parts of the site.

For lunch, we had a wonderful barbecue there at the museum. The weather was perfect, so we couldn’t image a more perfect place to spend time with our new Lithuanian and Italian friends, as we spent the afternoon playing games in the wonderful outdoors.

May 2023 - Today we had to get up a little earlier because we had a lot to do. We met at school to prepare for the presentations. At 9 o’clock all students (Lithuanians, Italians and us) presented their work on air pollution. We all showed our diagnosis on transport and mobility in our towns and how these effect air pollution, and then we presented our proposals on how this issue could be tackled in the future with concrete solutions. We all did very well and a real exchange of ideas took place.

After the presentations, we all got bicycles. Lithuanian students brought theirs, but we could all borrow not only the bicycles, but also helmets and safety vests. At 10 o’clock, we left on a bike ride through the countryside to Kacergine. The views were beautiful as we were cycling along the river. We had lunch in a beautiful spot near the water. After eating, we returned to Kaunas very tired but satisfied for having completed such a long ride.

Presentations:

May 2023 - On our second day in Lithuania, we traveled from Kaunas to Vilnius to visit the Transport museum and the capital of the country.

We met at the school and on the school bus we made our way to the train station in Kaunas. From there we traveled to Vilnius on the train. Once in Vilnius, we visited the Railway Museum. We worked in groups on an activity to find out interesting facts about the Museum’s treasures.

After lunch, we visited Vilnius using an app to complete a virtual scavenger hunt that, at times, it proved to be quite challenging. At the end of the game, we met at the cathedral, and we made our way to the train station in order to return to Kaunas by train.

May 2023 - We started our day with a wonderful welcome ceremony with music and dances and the official welcome speeches. After that, we had an ice breaking activity so that the three groups (Lithuanians, Italians and us) could get to know each other. We had a great time playing together.

After lunch, we visited the Lithuanian Museum of Aviation, where we saw different types of aircraft. Most of it was outdoors and it was fascinating. We loved riding on the flying simulation!

After the museum, we enjoyed a really fun exploration game of Kaunas town center in groups and using an app. We loved taking pictures of the city.

We returned to the school, and we then spent time with our host families.

April 2023 - The last day hosting the mobility here in Manresa has been very intense. We have started building sustainable solutions to have a more sustainable city using a World of Minecraft Education. After that, a group of Bat Pro students have joined us to work on Counter advertising, to think critically about the way we consume and how brands manipulate consumers.

After a short break, we have done a workshop on Upcycling. We have turned discarded objects that we would find in the rubbish into new objects with a new function. This is a very important concept to consider in a more sustainable society. To give objects a longer life and learn to consume less.

In the evening, families and students met in the school’s canteen and we enjoyed a fantastic party. We said goodbye and we gave the Lithuanian and Italian students their certificates, but we also enjoyed ourselves and we celebrated Earth Day with a Quiz and lots of music!

April 2023 - Today we have had a fantastic day in Barcelona. We arrived after 9 and we organised ourselves in groups to start the exploration activity.

We had to go to some of the most important landmarks in Barcelona’s old district, learn about the place and take a photo following the instructions given. We had to take a photo with a police officer in Plaça Sant Jaume, or visit the Mammoth in Parc de la Ciutadella among others. We have walked quite a lot, but it has been worth it!

We gathered all for lunch at 13.30 at the Aquarium and we relaxed in the afternoon walking around Barcelona’s Marina.

At 4pm we traveled back to Manresa.

April 2023 - We started the day preparing the Upcycling workshop that we are going to do next Friday. At 9 we left the school to go to the town hall. There, the Mayor addressed a few words to us and we were able to explain our project to him too.

After that, we walked to the Casino where the person responsible for the UN Agenda for 2030 in the Municipality explained all the actions Manresa is taking towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

We had time for a quick snack, but we were soon busy again with the SDGs Escape Room. The game consisted of a series of puzzles we had to solve in different locations in the town that were all related to some of the most important Sustainable Development Goals.

After lunch, it was time for our presentations. The Lithuanians, Italians and our students from FEDAC Manresa presented their proposals to make our towns and cities more sustainable in the future. At the end of the presentations, we had time to prepare some questions for the other countries and we engaged in a very interesting debate.

April 23 - We have had a very exciting day today. At 8 am we travelled by bus to Montserrat. There, we had an exploration activity to learn about the mountain and the monastery and we saw the Black Virgin (Montserrat).

After that we walked to St Miquel, where we enjoyed fantastic views of the valleys around the Mountain.

Coming down from St Miquel, we ate our snacks and made it to the bottom, reaching the Monastery. We had free time until 1pm to wander around. Then, by bus, we returned to the School.

After lunch, we completed our sustainability challenges on a Minecraft world. We had to make a street lighting system more sustainable and work on a rubbish selection system among other missions.

Having completed such a busy day, we are now all ready to hang out together around Manresa relaxing with a nice ice cream.

April 2023 / This morning we welcomed our Italian and Lithuanian partners into our school.

We had an official ceremony with music and speeches, but soon after that we took our guests on a tour around the school.

After the tour we had a lovely snack and then we had a very exciting ice breaking activity with lots of challenges to complete in teams.

After the activity we had time to hang out at the playground for a bit before lunch.

In the afternoon a group of older students showed us around Manresa. They were our tour guides and they explained the most important landmarks in town.

Later we all wanted to relax and hang out together, and we decided to go to the sports area of Congost.

11 November 2022 - On our last day in Sicily, we visited the Sicilian Capital Palermo. We started at the Botanical Gardens and continued sightseeing in the town centre. We had time to wander around the town and admired the buildings from different time periods and the rich historical sites and heritage.

In the evening, the school, in collaboration with the Town Hall, invited us to a farewell party with wonderful food and an amazing Erasmus Cake. We had music and dances and some farewell tears too…

It has been a wonderful experience for all the participants, we have learned a lot of things and we have had a lot of fun as well.

This is a summary of our Erasmus Plus mobility in Sicily

10 November 2022 - On Thursday we visited the Mazzamuto cave and the woods surrounding the cave. We took part in the Altavilla’s School project “Each child plants a tree”, so all of us planted a tree in the Mazzamuto area. We enjoyed the wonderful landscape and the rich flora of the island, which is threatened by forest fires in the summer. Italian students explained about the plants and trees of this protected area.

After lunch, we visited the Town Hall and we met with the Mayor of Altavilla. We also visited an art exhibition of paintings done on tin, which was quite unique.

9 November 2022 - In the morning we met at the school and we learned about the UNESCO World Heritage Sicilian puppets. The “maestros” told us about how they are made and how to perform with them. We also saw a show, which was very interesting and entertaining.

Later, a local artist, Tommaso Provenzano, helped us create beautiful bookmarks that we could take home.

After that, we walked to a very well preserved Norman bridge called “Saracen Bridge”. Then, we went on walking until we reached the beach, where we stopped for lunch.

In the afternoon, we created international groups and we spent some time collecting rubbish on the beach. We worked hard and realised how much rubbish people leave behind…

In the evening, the host families took us on a boat ride to San Nicola. This was an exciting experience with amazing views of the Sicilian coast.

8 November 2022 - On our second day in Altavilla, we visited the primary school in the town. Later we had the schools’ presentations, our students presented the activities done on Waste Management. They did a great job!.

They learned from the other schools about environmental problems affecting the waters and shores of Sicily and Lithuania.

In the afternoon, we visited Cefalú. A picturesque town near Palermo. We had a wonderful time wandering around and eating delicious “gelato”.

This is our presentation on the actions we have taken at school to improve sustainability around us:

7 November 2022 - After receiving a very warm welcome from our host families yesterday; today, we have been welcomed by the school’s orchestra and traditional dances and we had a welcome ceremony in our honour.

After a break we learned how to recycle paper creating a photo frame and coasters using the paper quilling technique.

After lunch, they taught us the traditional dancing routines. We all tried, but it was more difficult than it looked.

Later we had a great evening with our new friends and host families.

7 October 2022 - To finish our mobility in Turkey, we traveled from Gaziantep to Halfeti, on the Euphrates river. Sailing on a boat we could see the Rumkale byzantine ruins and the caves on the river bank. It was very interesting to see the birth of civilization.

We had a fantastic meal by the water and in the afternoon we returned to Gaziantep to say goodbye to all our friends

Video summary of our stay in Gaziantep

6 October 2022 - On our fourth day in Gaziantep, we first had a debate with the environmental engineer in the Eco-building about the current climate crises. Then, each country presented information on the implementation of renewable energies in each of our countries.