Connected with the Environment - Module I & II

Guide Book
Connected with the Environment

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INTRODUCTION
The project “Connected with the Environment” is a 2-year project designed to develop and
strengthen partnerships between 5 European Schools with different experiences and back-
grounds. It aims at approaching different aspects of the theme of the environment via var-
ious topics and levels which all together should result in achieving high quality skills and
competences in areas such as interpersonal relationships, cultivating national heritage or
being more friendly to the environment. Moreover, all levels will include highly intense and
efficient use of digital learning tools and exchanging good practices so as to meet the needs
of teachers and learners in all partner schools to make the technology a part of the learning
process. The activities will be supported by the teachers from many different domains such
as science, history, ICT, languages and psychology. All the partners will eagerly promote all
the skills and competences acquired during the project to enable next groups of students and
teachers to benefit from the achievements of this project.
The aim of this guidebook is to present and disseminate the results of our work. You will find
here the description of the tasks as well as some of the students works. We hope some of
the ideas will inspire other teachers and schools to run such a project, whether only partially
or completely.
If you are interested in the latest news on the Project, please visit our blog:
connectedwiththeenvironment.blogspot.com
and our eTwinning page:
twinspace.etwinning.net/50939/home

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THE PARTNERS
Międzynarodowa Szkoła Podstawowa Paderewski in Lublin was set up in 2009 so as to
broaden the educational offer of existing since 1998 Międzynarodowe Liceum Paderewski.
This system now offers one coherent teaching process starting from elementary education
all the way to International Baccalaureat. Since its beginnings, the school specialises in inno-
vative approaches to learning in order to enable its students to discover the world and acquire
the knowledge in a creative and individualised way. We strongly promote formative assess-
ment and self-assessment so as our students know the direction of their learning process.
The school constantly implements new technologies into the classrooms.
Danila Kumar in Ljubljana is a state owned school that has been offering an internation-
al programme since 1993. Originally responding to a request from the Slovenian Ministry
of Education, Danila Kumar provides an international kindergarten, elementary and middle
school programme for children of foreign nationals living in Slovenia. Our staff has a lot of
experience in communicating and working with the children from various cultures, EAL and
SEN students and participating in various international projects with IB schools, international
contests and competitions.
I.Osnovna škola Varaždin (First Elementary School Varaždin) is the oldest, leading elemen-
tary-level educational institution in Varaždin, Croatia. The school fosters a proactive atmo-
sphere of openness to new ideas and challenges, coupled with strong responsibility towards
the obligations that we take on. The school lays claim to some historical significance, having
been founded on march 19, 1933. as a four –year school named in honor of Queen Maria. It
has been a hub of knowledge and culture in the city of Varaždin ever since, achieving exem-
plary results. The school places great value in ecology and is among the first 20 Eco Schools
in Croatia. Our aim is to follow the European and world trends.
International School Carinthia (ISC) is a public-private partnership school located in southern
Austria near the Italian and Slovenian borders. ISC was founded in 2013 and in October 2016,
ISC received Primary Years Program authorization from the International Baccalaureate (IB)
Organization and is now in the process of pursuing IB Middle Years Program authorization
followed by IB Diploma Program authorization as we grow. ISC is the only international school
in Carinthia with English as the main language of instruction. ISC’s holistic academic program
emphasizes inquiry-based learning, technology integration and international mindedness.
Costeas Geitonas School (CGS) is one of the largest private schools in Greece. The school
is open and accessible to children and their families from the wider area of Attica, which rep-
resents a population with diverse backgrounds. CGS is an IB international school and offers
a robust educational programme to students of all ages. CGS is also known for its emphasis
on technology, STEM education (CGS STEM Academy), sport (Elite Athlete Programme), Arts,
and its sensitivity for students with special needs at either side of the spectrum (differentiat-
ed teaching for students with dyslexia and CGS Academia for students with higher learning
motivation).

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Module I: History and Culture
Module I – History and culture was aimed at discovering student’s personal stories, getting
to know their teachers, schools as well as broaden their knowledge about the city and the
region. Students chose various forms of presenting their achievements in forms of posters,
videos with interviews, multimedia presentations and video montages. The culmination of
the module was a LTT meeting in Lublin, held in Lublin between 19th
-23rd
March 2018, where
the students got a chance to mix their local legends and create brand-new ones. It was a
refreshing experience as their creativity and innovative approach surprised all of us!

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Local project logo competitions and transnational
competition on eTwinning
As a start to the ERASMUS + Connected with the Environment 2017-19 project, the logo com-
petition took place between all five schools in the cooperation. Each school ran their own
internal logo competition. After the finalist from each school was determined, then voting “Eu-
rovision style” took place. Each partner determined which logo would receive 10 points (top
vote), 6 points, 4 points and 2 points. No school could vote for their own logo. The winner was
the school with the most points after voting. Each partner school made a video of the voting
and shared the video with all the schools. The winner was announced by the main coordinator
and the results were given to students.
International School Carinthia produced a few different logos in groups of two and three within
our Connected with the Environment group. From these logos, the team decided to take some
of the best features of each and add them to the logo that they thought was the best. In the
end, it was a combination of many ideas from each team and we were quite proud of our
creation!
After all of the voting was complete, the winner of the contest was I.osnovna škola Varaždin
school from Croatia! All members of the ERASMUS + partnership were quite happy to have
this logo to represent our project. Congratulations again to Croatia!
I.osnovna škola Varaždin (Croatia)

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International School Carinthia (Austria) CGS (Greece)
Paderewski (Poland) OŠ Danile Kumar (Slovenia)
Danila Kumar International School

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Analysis of how students have changed throughout
the years
Before the students can dig into the stories of their regions and cities it is a good idea they
could start with themselves. The main objectives of this task are to:
• allow students to analyse the changes in their lives
• get to know each other
• see whether the changes are the same or different
The original plan was to create posters with pictures or multimedia presentations. However,
the idea of every project is to get the students creative and during the process some of them
found different ways they would like to approach the subject. This way the work on the task
was extremely creative and enabled the children to express in the most efficient way. Apart
from posters with pictures we also had a blog entry, a video in the application ‘Draw my life’,
timelines, posters with charts and mathematical analysis as well as a holistic approach to the
student education throughout the years provided by students from CGS in Greece.
As in every project, students were monitored by their teachers and had to report on the prog-
ress made. It could be summarised in the following steps:
1. choice of the form (poster, video etc)
2. notes on the life and selection of pictures
3. a draft and a consultation with the teacher
4. work on a final version
5. presentation and evaluation
A fragment of the presentation of students from CGS (Greece)

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This could be realised in the span of two or three meetings. The main point should be the pre-
sentation of the work so that all the students could get to know each other. As a result they can
also notice the similarities and differences their peers undergo and in the next step, compare
their experience with students from other schools. The evaluation performed in Międzynaro-
dowa Szkoła Podstawowa Paderewski in Lublin showed that the students enjoyed the task,
got to know themselves and others as well as have become more aware of the changes going
on in their lives. They also appreciated the freedom in the choice of the form, which allowed
them to present their lives in the best possible way.
During the realisation of the task it
turned out that it can be also used as
a way to measure the improvement
of students’ skills and achievements
eg. on PE lessons, in relationships
with other people, skills in particular
subjects such as Maths, Science,
languages etc. It has become visible
to students that they are constantly
changing and developing and even
though those changes may seem in-
significant at the time, they certainly
influence their lives in the future.
A poster of Alicja from Paderewski (Poland)
Konrad from Paderewski (Poland)
Mathematical analysis of Vita from POS (Croatia)
A timeline of Tonka from POS (Croatia)

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Creating family trees and lap books with family stories
The starting point for this activity was the decision whose life will they investigate and what
kind of information they would like to present.
As the focus of this module was history, the students were able to:
• investigate and explore it from different points of view
• to get to know their own and their families’ history
• form of a family tree.
Some students choose to create a digital family tree thus using their computer skills and the
tablets apps: miMind, while others used a more traditional approach and created a paper ver-
sion which enabled them to utilize their drawing skills and show their artistic talent.
Below there are a few examples from different students:
Family tree in a digital form (made by Croatian student)

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Family tree (made by Slovenian student)
This way they learned what a family tree is, how to gather information and what kind of infor-
mation can be presented in this way.

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Making video clips about school’s history
Students spend a large part of their life in their school. The school constitutes the social con-
text in which they grow up, they socialize and they develop their personalities. Each school
has its own history and the administration, teachers and students are part of it. The aims of
this activity was to:
• Explore the history of the school through school archives but also through interaction
with the people of the school
• Prepare a short video to present the history of the school.
Students were enthusiastic about this idea and they worked really hard: They took up the role
of a journalist, a screenplay writer, a director and a film editor. They arranged meetings with
various members of the school community. They prepared questions and they interviewed
the Head of the school, teachers and former students. They researched and discovered fasci-
nating details about the history of the school. They shot videos and they edited their material
in order to finalize their product. During the learning activity in Lublin-Poland, all videos were
presented so that all participants had the opportunity to see the work of the students but also
be informed about the history of the five schools.
Students from Croatia researched the school archives and went back to 1875 when the school
started to run the chronicle for each year.
Screenshot from Croatian video
Here is a link where you can watch the
full video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCkY-
BU6fnCE
Students from Greece decided to interview the Head of the school so they prepared a list of
questions and arranged a meeting in his office.
Screenshot from Greek video
full video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXs0B-
KH2Z3o

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Students from Slovenia explored how their school has changed through the years by inter-
viewing a former student and current parent.
Screenshot from Slovenian video
full video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU-
3mUXQCr9k
Students from Poland used technology to present the history of their school in a original way.
Screenshot from Polish video
full video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLLX-
MUVjJjs

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Interviewing chosen teachers about their life stories
After our students have studied their development and their history (past), they had to do the
same with their school. To get familiar with the life and work in school through the past, they
decided to interview the teachers.
The aim was:
• to find out more how they used to teach and what teaching methods and teaching re-
sources they used
• what kind of relationship was between a teacher and a student at some other time.
In order to realize their task, students had to choose the teachers first for an interview and
discuss the questions.
Students from Croatia have made an
interview with a retired teacher.
Here is the link you can watch the full
video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGEBBt-
MatZU&list=LLKhaPve2a8FZe5lsEgN-
VLbA
Students from Greece have made in-
terviews with teachers and their life
stories.
video:
w w w . y o u t u b e . c o m /
watch?v=wOtCKZKAAtc
Screenshot from Greek video

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Students from Poland have made an
interview with a Spanish teacher.
video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMP-
CEyCDN2A
Students from Slovenia have made an
interview with an Art teacher.
video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU-
3mUXQCr9k
There were few younger still working teachers but also few retired teachers and children easily
compared and concluded similarities and differences between them.
All the interviews were recorded by students and the result are video clips. The students were
excited and interested in teachers stories and they enjoyed video recording.
Analyzing and comparing interviews with project participants we can conclude that teachers’
stories are quite similar. The most significant is the love for children and teaching that con-
nects them.

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Gathering legends about cities/regions
After having discovered the stories of their families and schools, the students are prepared to
enter the last part of the module. The objectives of this task are to:
• learn about the cultural heritage of the students’ environment
• familiarize with the local legends and choose the most interesting ones
• present the legends in different forms
In this part the students had an opportunity to revise or to discover their local legends. Ev-
ery school selected two most interesting and important ones to become a base of a project
during the meeting of all the partners. What is more, the task can become a part of many
types of classes, starting from history lessons or national language classes to art and foreign
languages classes.
As a project it can be performed individually or in groups, depending on students’ preferences.
The steps outlined in the action plan for the task are the following:
1. doing research on the local legends and narrowing it down to one (per person/group)
2. choosing a form of a presentation
3. consulting a teacher about the form
4. presenting a legend n a form of a comic strip, a picture, a written story or a multimedia
presentation
5. evaluation of the project
Through the work on the task it was stated by the students that every single place in the world
has its legends and stories and it is our task to preserve it. They are easy to understand even
for small children and certainly all of us remember some legends and stories during the bed-
time even if we didn’t realize what they were at that time. The legends chosen by the students
were:
• Czarcia Łapa (about a trial with the devil’s appearance)
• Legend on how Lublin got its name
• The great fire of Varaždin
• Legend about bear’s den and church
• Legend of lake Wörthersee
• Legend on how Klagenfurt got its name
• The birth of Athena (and other form the mythology of Athens)
• The legend of Water Man in Ljubljana
• The legend of Martin Krpan
The diversity of the legends enabled students to create brand new legends and perform a
short play. This ensured all the kids remember a piece of their friends’ local legends as well as
the teachers be amazed by their pupils innovative ideas and imagination.

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A fragment of presentation about Greek myths A story of a Great Fire of Lublin
Slovenian legend of Povodni
mož in pictures
Croatian legend about great fire in Varaždin 1776
Croatian legend about bear’s den and church

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Blogging about cultural events
Technology provides the freedom to share, virtually instantaneously, experiences and infor-
mation from people to people and culture to culture. In order to utilize this technological
freedom, the partner schools decided to develop a collective blog where each school will once
a week share an event that has taken place in their community or update achievements in
their pursuits of module and objective fulfillment. Giving all participant schools a chance to
communicate regularly via an electronic platform on a regular basis in English was a valuable
aspect that also proves to be challenging at times from a point of view of effective expression
and relaying factual information and also risk-taking since the majority of participants do not
have English as their native language.
The events described on the blog were as follows (by country):
Croatia:
• The Varaždin Baroque Evenings
m.youtube.com/watch?v=-
JKhw83cf-g8
• Špancirfest www.youtube.com/
watch?v=h5dQdlM6BGM
Poland:
• Night of Culture en.nockultury.pl/
• Carnaval Sztukmistrzów in Lublin en.sztukmistrze.eu/
• Different sounds festival en.innebrzmienia.eu/
• Jarmar Jagielloński en.jarmarkjagiellonski.pl/
Night of Culture in Lublin

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Greece:
• The globally acclaimed “Van Gogh
Alive – The Experience” (www.
vangoghalive.gr/indexen.html),
which stretches the definition of
the word ‘exhibition’ as it stimu-
lates the senses and opens the
mind and
• The exhibition “Science Fiction:
A Journey into the Unknown”
(www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG1974/),
which explores science fiction’s
long-standing influence on the full
range of contemporary culture.
Slovenia:
• Enci benci Katalenci performance
connectedwiththeenvironment.blogspot.com/2018/04/enci-benci-katalenci-performance.
html
• Opening of the art exhibition
connectedwiththeenvironment.blogspot.com/2018/04/opening-of-art-exhibition-portraits.
html
Austria:
Velden and the surrounding area are mainly tourism focused and have been for a number of
decades. Because of this, events mainly cater to the tourist crowd and this is what we chose
to blog about. It is and has been a part of our cultural fabric.

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Analysing the cities’ importance in a chosen historical
period
By the end of this activity, students have gained a deeper understanding of:
• what everyday life was like in the chosen historical period
• what consequences did it have for the life we have today.
In order to achieve this goal there are various paths to take.
The students from Slovenia chose to write a story set in a historical period of the Romans,
when the city of Ljubljana was still called Emona.
The students from Poland talked about Lublin during Industrial Age and their project called ‘2nd
Chance - Waking up a Sleeping Giants’.
The students from Croatia presented the event of a great fire that happened in Varaždin in
1776. They chose that period because after the great fire Varaždin was not a capital city.
Here is the link you can watch the video which students were given from Museum of Varaždin:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_LzmlDCG-c
The students from Greece analyzed the importance of Athens during the 5th century BC,
the so called Pericles’ Golden Age and presented the Economic, political, philosophical and
cultural evolution of the city. They discussed the development of direct democracy and pre-
sented the landmark monuments created during that period.
The students from Austria discovered that there was not a lot of information about the sig-
nificance of Velden am Wörthersee so they expanded their research to the state of Carinthia
in which Velden lies. They then chose to create a History blog about what they discovered.

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This task encouraged students to investigate the significance and importance of the historical
period – the time frame, the architecture, the customs, language and the culture itself.
pic1: Student’s presentation of Emona.
Polish students working on Industrial sites wordsearch

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Learning/teaching/training activity in Lublin
All the activities performed throughout the module were to prepare the students for the final
task. The representatives of schools in Greece, Croatia, Austria and Slovenia came to Interna-
tional Primary School Paderewski in Lublin, Poland, in March 2018. The aims of the meeting
were the following:
• summarize the work from Module I History
• reenact the legends prepared by the students in all of the partners schools
• reinforce linguistic and social abilities of participants
• promote Polish cultural heritage
The first day consisted of integrating workshops as well as acting classes in order to break
the ice with the stage and get familiar with the upcoming situation. Next, all the schools briefly
summarized their participation in the project and shared their work with others. In the mean-
time, after some brainstorming the teachers have decided to change the activity with reenact-
ments of legends. Instead of preparing the plays of existing legend, the teachers wanted the
students to come up with an entirely new play containing the elements of legends from every
country. The children were divided into groups with representatives of each school. They had
to revise the legends, pick the most suitable elements and create a draft of the play. In order
to help, the teachers provided them with a Story Mountain handout, which facilitated them to
work on the plot. In the middle of the week, on Wednesday morning they had to resent their
ideas in order for the teachers to monitor the progress and for the other groups to give the
feedback. It was a very significant moment for the teams to reflect upon their work and make
some necessary adjustments. All in all, the plays staged on Friday were extraordinary! The
teachers could not hide their pride and appreciation for the students creativity. It was impres-
sive especially because the kids improvised with the gym equipment, brought some prompts
form their host families and did not have access to a professional stage. All the groups sup-
ported each other and had a lot of fun watching the performances.
Apart from working on plays the guests visited the Old Town in Lublin and its Castle as well as
went on a field trip to a picturesque palace in Kozłówka and a city of Kazimierz Dolny.
The visit was a great success for all the participants as it showed both the students and the
teachers not to be afraid of improvisation and adjusting the plans.
The videos of the play are available on our eTwinning page:
twinspace.etwinning.net/50939/home

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MODULE II - Relationships
After having got familiar with the history and culture of all partner schools and countries, we
set out to discover the world of the relationships around us. The aim of this module was to
identify and analyse the emotions in the classrooms as well as find out whether the school
can be a family. The students were also involved in organising socialising actions for their
environments and conducted a variety of charity actions so that they could help some local
institutions. The final steps were to define the schools’ position in the local environment and
to interview the citizens on the quality of life in the region. This module enabled the students
to develop management skills and deepened their collaborations skills as all the tasks had
required their initiative and group work.
The module was finalised in Varaždin, Croatia, with the 2nd
Transnational Project Meeting,
where project staff members worked on this Guidebook, exchanged good practices and
strengthened their relationships.

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Analysis of emotions and relationships in classroom
A classroom is a dynamic environment where students are educated but also develop as
personalities. As John Dewey points out “education is not a preparation for life; education
is life itself”. Effective teaching and learning is closely related to the emotional state of the
students and it is also affected by the relationships that are built between students and their
teachers and peers. Students who feel emotionally safe and respected in class are more likely
to develop their mental capacity relative to students who feel rejected or underestimated. Re-
search has also shown that students that take up the responsibility of their own learning and
are self-regulated become long-life learners, set their own personal aims and decide the steps
needed in order to achieve them.
As part of Module 2 of our project, we decided to run a survey among the students of all five
participating countries in order to look into our classrooms and draw some conclusions about
the emotions and relationships developed in them. The Erasmus+ team collaborated with the
Psychologist department of the schools and prepared a questionnaire that was delivered to
students from all five schools online. The list of questions was as follows:
1. I feel physically safe in my classes (nobody fights with me, beats me etc).
2. I feel emotionally safe in my classes (I am liked, accepted, I am not bullied, teased etc).
3. Faculty and staff value what students have to say.
4. My school respects all races and cultures.
5. Students in my class care about learning and getting a good education.
6. I’m not afraid of asking questions and expressing my points of view.
7. I feel involved in decisions about things that affect them in class.
8. I feel that I belong (am accepted and liked) in my class.
9. Most of my teachers like me.
10. I respect my teachers.
11. Most of my teachers know my name.
12. I can count on my friends and teachers if I have a problem.
13. My head teacher tries so that we work in groups, collaborate, help each other and talk.
14. My friends and teachers support me when I can’t do certain things.
15. Good atmosphere and contact with my classmates and the teacher helps me in learning.
After running the survey, the answers were statistically analysed using the Google Sheets
program, graphs were created and the results were analyzed so that the team could draw
some conclusions.
The task is considered to be extremely useful. Apart from the fact that students were involved
in the process of conducting a simple social research and statistically analysing the outcomes
of a quantitative questionnaire very important findings were identified.

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Our analysis showed that most of the students feel physically and emotionally safe in their
class - that includes feeling liked and accepted. The vast majority feels their school respects
all races and cultures, and agree that the faculty and staff value what the students have to say.
Most students believe their classmates care about learning and getting a good education and
are not afraid of asking questions and expressing their points of view in school. In our schools
students care about learning and getting a good education and they think it is very important
for have a successful life in the future. They have no fear of asking questions and they feel
involved in decisions about things that affect them.
It was evident from the survey that the students most strongly agree with the statement that
most of their teachers know their names and most also stated that they respect their teachers
and most of their teachers like them. The majority agrees that good atmosphere and contact
with their classmates and the teacher helps them in learning and they can count on their
friends and teachers if they have a problem.
Examples of bar charts
The full statistical analysis of our findings can been found in our e-twinning page

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Organising socialising event for students, parents and
teachers
The main focus of this module were relationships - viewed from different perspectives. Stu-
dents, parents and teachers together create a community - school - each playing their own
role and contributing their own part.
Social events strengthen and enrich the relationships within the community. This helps:
• the participants to work on their social skills
• connects and supports all the members of the community
• enriches the parent - student - teacher relationships
• developes care for each other
• the students can meet their peers from different classes in different environment
The events can take different forms and shapes.
Connected With the Environment students at International School Carinthia invited the
school community to a “parent coffee” to learn about the project and gain support for the
hosting opportunity in May when all member schools send their representatives to ISC. Par-
ents were given the opportunity to ask questions and offer their support.
Another group from ISC’s Connect-
ed With the Environment assisted in
the annual PYP 5 Exhibition where
students present their findings of a
self-directed inquiry over a two hour
period on a Friday. This gave these
Connected with the Environment stu-
dents the chance to discuss the proj-
ect with parents and students from
across the school. Their documenta-
tion of the event itself is in the form of
a video.
Each year Danile Kumar International School from
Slovenia organises a socializing event that enables
the students, their parents and teachers to spend
quality time in nature. The collage of the event can
be seen on the following link:
youtu.be/4BhvOPmX0KE
At Danila Kumar International School’s Social Event
ISC Parent Coffee Morning Information Event

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CGS in Greece organised Academic evening where the students presented their achievement
and experience to the parents and this year they included a presentation of the Erasmus pro-
gram. The report can be read at Erasmus+ blog connectedwiththeenvironment.blogspot.
com/2018/05/cgs-academic-evening.html.
The students made a performance and a fair for Christmas.
MSP Paderewski organised a sleepover at school
and a sports day. The sleepover allowed the stu-
dents get to know their teachers in a less formal
environment which allowed them to connect and
strenghten their bonds while having a lot of fun.
The video is available under the link:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KerTPYqIqy0
Croatian students have made these events:
• Christmas Eve fair at school
• Pink Shirt day
• Family day
• School day
• Down Syndrome Day
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdWaFc_-GH0
All these various events and activities enabled the students, parents and teachers to connect
and get to know each other in a different environment. It was a great opportunity for students
to socialize with all the other students form their school, not just form their own class, all
while learning and contributing to help others.
Sleepover at Paderewski school
Social events at 1st Primary School Varaždin, Croatia

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Analysing the school as a family
We spend so much time at school throughout our life that sometimes it can be called our
second home. A well-functioning school can be therefore compared to a family. The main
aims of this task was to:
• get to know the students’ school environment
• determine the roles in family and how it functions
• practise creating comic strips and family trees.
• presenting the school as a family
The plan was to create online comic strips or a family trees. First, the students had to reflect
on what actually a family is and if there are any similarities or differences between the school
and their family. It turned out that those two can function in a similar way and the same roles
can be spotted both at school and at home. Students were supposed to get to know the
school environment and find the area they would like to present in their work. Some schools
decided to do the comic strip, but the outcome was different.
Students in Poland discovered a new programme called Pixton and created online comic sto-
ries about school being a second home for them.
In turn, Slovenian students used lego blocks to present scenes both from school and home to
show similarities and differences.
Croatian team went for creating a family tree consisting of all the faculty members having a
certain role. They used computer programme www.xmind.net
A comic book made by a Polish student

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A lego story from a Slovenian group
A Croatian school family free

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Greece: Students from Greece decided to use online software to create a family tree like rep-
resentation of our school. They visited all different departments of the school and they con-
ducted brief interviews with the heads so that they are informed about the teachers and their
roles. Finally they created their family tree using familyecho.com. Their work can be seen at
the following link: familyecho.com/?p=START&c=9zhyk230wm&f=877994637829539873
Austria: International School Carinthia chose to
brainstorm what qualities make a family a family.
After some deliberation, students concluded that a
school is not really “like a family” in the sense that
most people that you do not come into contact with
on a daily basis would be difficult to rank any sort
of relationship with. With that agreement, students
decided to move forward with more questions based
on year-levels rather than vertically across the year
levels because these are the students (and staff
members) that each child would have more contact
with and would likely draw upon connections when
answering surveys about “the school family”. They
collected the results from a sampling of students
across the school, compiled results, analyzed them
and made a poster of the constructed graphs from
the analysis along with some brief conclusions that
could be reached through the analysis.
Questions used on the survey:
• I am nervous about my Teacher
• I can talk with my teacher about outside of school things
• I play a special role in my class
• I can talk with anyone in my school
• I can work efficiently with anyone in my class
Austria posting final outcome of results
and conclusions of our “School as a Family”
investigatino.

35
Thanks to this activity young people discovered that every single person at school has a given
role and can be not only a teacher or a colleague but also a tutor, a guide or like a sister. The
students also realised that as in every family, the school life also has its ups and downs, but all
in all, we are there to support each other. From a practical from of view students acquired the
ability to create family trees and use online softwares to produce the final product.

36
Conducting charity actions at school connected with local
initiatives
Each school has a program of a type of service
learning which the kids complete in order to open
their mind to the needs and their ability to fill them
in communities in which they belong. Bringing all of
these ways of fulfilling this idea of looking outward at
communities of which the kids are a part and sharing
them with each other helped to fulfill the exchange of ideas and cultures at the foundation of
our ERASMUS+ Connected with the Environment project.
The process for determining what would best fill this purpose is below:
• each school looked at what was considered a “need” to fulfill in their wider school com-
munity
• initiatives were created with a purpose of helping a group or groups of people within a
community that the kids belonged by fulfilling the determined “need”
• students then organized the necessary components in order to successfully fulfill the
above need within their wider school community.
The final events in which each school took part are described below:
Austria: A member of our group dis-
covered that there is a shortage of
donated blood available for those in
need of it. She organized a date in
June, 2018 for a blood drive spon-
sored by the Austrian Red Cross
to be held at International School
Carinthia. 20 people signed up and there were
more walk-ins during the four hour period on Fri-
day, 28 September, 2018. For a variety of reasons
all but a few of the blood donors were not allowed
to donate blood to the Austria Red Cross. Due to
laws for information disclosure and clarity of lia-
bility, potential donors who did not speak German
fluently were not allowed to donate, even with a
translator at hand. Ineligibility to donate blood is quite common and is among the major caus-
es for the current shortage. It was a great opportunity for reflection and they are keen (armed
with the knowledge of attempt number one) to possibly attempt blood drive 2019!
“The best way to find
yourself is to lose yourself
in the service of others.”
— Mahatma Ghandi
Blood Drive ISC 2018

37
Croatia: Charity actions at school:
• “A great heart of Varaždin”
• “The smile of the children in hospital”
• “A Visit to Vukovar”
• “We help animals”
• “Let’s help the floodplain area”
• “The Earth day”
• “ Humanitarian Grocery Store”
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT-M5aB4XIk
Greece: Every year CGS students become vol-
unteers for the authentic marathon which takes
place in Athens. All volunteers have a meeting
point in Agia Paraskevi, a suburb of Athens where
the marathon runners pass from. From this place
kids with their powerful shouting and their hot
clapping, they encourage the marathon runners.
Our school cooperates with a Greek nonprofit organization named, ELEPAP, that supports
children with disabilities.
The volunteers also collect plastic bottles and they throw them in the green bins. Our school
helps the town to be cleaned after the Authentic Marathon and gives the plastic bottles for
recycling.
cgs.gr/programma-ethelontismou-35ou-marathoniou-tis-athinas-tou-afthentikou-marathoniou
Poland: Paderiada - a fundraising event for
Leszek Podkański foundation helping the kids
with serious illnesses and Give a paw - a collec-
tion for an animal shelter supported by Ex Lege
foundation. During Paderiada students, parents
and teachers spend some amazing time outside
while collecting money for a good cause. The students prepared some items to be sold during
the fair. The video is available here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UKkvV82RpU.
Slovenia: Every year, at Danila Kumar Elementary School, we organize the traditional “Help
our Schoolmate” charity fair. For the event, the students, together with their mentors, prepare
a cultural program with an exhibition of their artwork, created especially for this occasion. The
proceedings of the sales and the auction of sports equipment are used to help the underprivi-
leged students, and provide the possibility for them to participate in various activities such as
field trips and excursions, that they normally could not afford.
en.os-danilekumar.si/2017/11/29/new-year-charity-fair-help-our-schoolmates
Each year Grade 8 students complete a Community project that enables them to research
a chosen topic in great detail and conclude it with an action that will help the community in
some way.
Charity actions at 1st Primary School Varaždin, Croatia
Athens Classic Marathon volunteers
Paderiada in Paderewski

38
Analysing the school position in the neighbourhood
The focus of this task was to determine what kind of position does the school have in the
neighbourhood and try to gather information on how that influences the behaviour and con-
sequently on the relationships.
They survey had eight questions listed as follows:
1. Have you ever heard of our school?
2. Do you know anybody who attends this school?
3. List any differences there are to a state school?
4. Do you think that our school is more valuable for students than other school?
5. Is it worth to pay for private school?
6. Do you think this kind of teaching/learning in our school is successful?
7. Would you like your kid to go to this school?
8. Do you think that our school is a good way to start a successful life?
The students were responsible to interview people in their neighbourhood thus collecting an-
swers form five different cities (and countries).
Students from all five schools conducted surveys among the residents of the schools’ district.
The results show that everyone knows where our schools are located. Most think that it teach-
es appropriate values and that they are successful. They feel that the school successfully
prepares its students for real life and would enrol their children in the school.
They listed the following sources of noise in the neighbourhood: delivery services, building
sites, youth (10-14 years old), firemen, police, football field, school playground, birds. Most
disagree that the school is a source of noise in the neighbourhood and agree that the school
has a positive influence in the neighbourhood. It is evident from the survey that they feel the
cooperation with the school is good and that they occasionally attend events organised by
the school.
The students got the opportunity to meet people in their neighbourhood, learn more about
how they see their school and the effect it has on the surroundings. They also gained experi-
ence in collecting information and data and learning how to present it.
Most of the interviewers answered that they prefer private than public schools. They men-
tioned that private schools in our country, not only provide better education, but also have
better facilities and create more chances for every of their student’s studies.

39
Examples of pie charts from the survey

40
Quality of life in the region - An interview with the citizens
After our students analyzed the relationships in the classroom, a school as a family and the
school position in the community, we wanted to find out about the quality of life in the region.
The data was obtained through citizen interviews and the goal of the task was to find out
what the citizens are proud of and what would they eventually change in their city or region.
Students wanted to explore and learn about the:
• Quality of life
• Quality of water
• Quality of air
• General satisfaction considering environment
Students developed their communication skills.
Students from Croatia were
interested in the citizens’ opin-
ion about the quality of air and
water in the city and how eco-
logically aware they were in ev-
eryday life.
Interview analysis concluded
that citizens are unhappy with
hazardous baled waste at the
entrance of the city and that
they are satisfied by classify-
ing waste organized at the lo-
cal community level.
The Slovenian pupils studied the sources and levels
of noise in the neighborhood. They were also inter-
ested in the school’s influence in everyday life in the
neighbourhood. They concluded that the noise level
is quite high and from different sources and that their
school is not the primary source of noise. Also the
school does a good job at teaching appropriate values
and prepares the students well for real life.
A word cloud from Croatia
A word cloud from Slovenia

41
Students from Poland carried out several interviews with the citizens. They worked together
on the basic questions about advantages and disadvantages of the life in Lublin. They also
wanted to know what the citizens were proud of, how they assessed the cultural life or chang-
es and development in their environment. After collecting the interviews they concluded that
most of the people appreciate the changes in Lublin and despite the cities problems it’s a great
place to live.
Austria:
Students from International School
Carinthia created a short interview
process for parents picking up their
kids from ISC. It was a challenging
process that they settled on which
allotted time for quick, but pointed
answers to the questions that they
devised. The questions mainly fo-
cused on quality of life and if the re-
spondents felt happy with the balance
and general atmosphere provided by
governmental entities. Quality of air
and water are fortunately a “given” in
the area so these were not included
in the interview questions. The word
cloud below was generated with these
resulting interviews:
A summary made by Polish students
A word cloud from Austria

42
Greece
Greek students decided that the best way to go about was to head to the centre of the town
of Pallini, and approach its residents and people who have businesses or work in the area.The
questions asked would revolve around the issues of the quality of life in Pallini and reasons to
justify their assessment, whether they feel the municipality of Pallini, the mayor and the public
services do enough regarding hygiene, cleanliness and good condition of Pallini and if they
feel that Pallini is a “good” area for someone to live in and why.
The majority of the participants seem to feel that the quality of life in our area is rather good
and decent. However, from their responses we can deduct that they feel that the area doesn’t
have much to offer in terms of entertainment. When presenting their reasons on why they
have a positive view of the area, they mentioned the following: fresh air, surrounded by trees,
low noise levels, proximity to clean beaches, quality of buildings. They also mentioned that the
area has a vibrant and viable market.
In terms of downsides, the respondents did make reference to the condition of the streets
and littering which appear to be an issue. They feel that the municipality and the mayor do
not do enough to preserve the area. A major downside is also public transport which is rather
restricted in the area and most residents have to use a car daily. This, however, is burdened
by the traffic problems caused, on one hand, by the number of cars in the main streets and,
on the other hand, by the school busses that seem to take over the streets in the morning and
late noon. These create a major traffic problem in the area as, there are quite a few private
schools in Pallini and the surrounding areas. Finally, few respondents mentioned violence and
crime rate which, in their view, seems to be rising due to the development of the area and the
increase of its population.
A word cloud from Greece

This Guidebook reflects the views only of the authors and the National Agencies for the
Erasmus+ programme cannot be held responsible for any information contained therein and
its use. Should you wish to use the materials from this Guidebook, you agree to acknowledge
that the materials were developed by the ‘Connected with the Environment’ team.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International License.

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