M1 - first meeting in The Hague
At the start of February '23 the representatives of our 6 partner institutes visited Maerlant-Lyceum in The hague: eight teachers from schools in Spain, Italy and Turkey, four trainers from NGOs in Turkey and Norway and a university lecturer from Latvia. Together we form a so-called Erasmus Plus strategic partnership with the theme 'Green Schools for Green Europe'. This was the kick-off meeting, the first in a series involving first only teachers and later students who will visit the various partner schools in small groups. We talked about the content of the teacher training - how are we going to help colleagues to give sustainability a place in their lives? In their classrooms? About the distribution - there will be a website, social media accounts and very soon a logo design competition. Of course we also talkes about the program itself: with no fewer than 13 mobilities in the future with a total of almost 300 people going on trips, comparing calendars was really necessary.

C1 - Training meeting. March 2023

Blog by Paul Scheltus, project coordinator

Between June 4 and 10 of 2023 we were in Riga with a delegation for the first teacher activity of the Green Schools for Green Europe project. This mobility was the first of three in which teachers receive training on sustainability in education. This training was provided by teachers from  Riga Technical University (RTU) and was completely tailor-made for the teachers from the four partner schools from Italy, Spain, Turkey and The Netherlands.

Riga, the Latvian capital, is located about 15 km inland in the delta of the Dvina River. The old Hanseatic city - where merchants of the Low Countries once got the wood for those Amsterdam poles in the song - is located on the right bank of the river. Across the street, our hotel and beyond, the vast campus of the RTU. On Monday morning, about 30 teachers met in a room at the Faculty of Architecture. A pleasant review for some, after our first meeting in February in The Hague. Most were seeing each other for the first time. In four and a half days, Inga and Santa from the RTU Design Lab would instruct, motivate and, above all, inspire us to give our education a green edge.

We did a lot that week. We learned about the background of the sustainability movement, and that it is much broader than just the fight against global warming. For example, it also concerns loss of biodiversity, chemical pollution and loss of drinking water. The focus was on the so-called SDGs - the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and how they relate to each other. When tackling a sustainability issue, we learned, it is important to also look at the economic and social implications. It must all be affordable and preferably, also interesting for companies.

Based on that knowledge, we then started working on design principles for education. We shared knowledge and experience in groups and, although there were a number of fun actions (our Spanish eco-school partner organizes an art competition called Recyl-Arte, where students use used objects and waste as raw materials for works of art) we soon came to the conclusion that many schools start enthusiastically, but get stuck after the low-hanging fruit of recycling bins and sustainable canteens have been achieved. What now?

Fortunately, Inga and Santa, both researchers who received their PhDs on sustainability in business, were there to help us. We were provided with design principles such as the Green Leadership Mindset and the Green Competence Framework, both of which describe skills and insights needed to make sustainable projects successful. Suddenly we had building blocks for creating cross-curricular projects that students can sink their teeth into. We also heard about concepts that are easy for students to put into practice, such as the circular economy (we already do a bit with a second-hand clothing market) and the principle of reduce, reuse, recycle.

The lectures at the RTU were alternated with excursions. We visited no fewer than four different schools, two of which are eco-schools that are working hard to become as green as possible. We received presentations from enthusiastic students (you could tell that enthusiasm was just from the fact that the summer holidays in Latvia had already started on June 1!), spoke with Latvian colleagues in their warmly colored classrooms full of student work and admired the ingenious educational furniture – chairs on wheels that you can sit on in different ways and triangular tables that quickly form groups.

We also went to an old paper factory near the town of Ligatne – once the beating economic heart of the region and the largest employer in the area, then declared bankrupt because they could not cope with the raw capitalism of the 90s, now bought up by local boy made good, which sees an opportunity to become the most sustainable paper producer in the Baltic states. At the rural school nearby, where the classrooms are full of inspiring slogans from leadership gurus, we met the school management and ate a delicious Latvian school lunch in the sun.

On Friday afternoon we returned from the last visit, a visit outside Riga to the schools where the colleagues we met in Turkey earlier this year taught. We were also warmly welcomed there. There too we were impressed by what is being achieved in the field of education in a country where the average gross income fluctuates around 1,400 euros, less than half of the Netherlands.

All in all a very inspiring week. For me, as coordinator of this Erasmus project, it was very nice to see that what started as a casual comment to a colleague from Italy to 'do something together with Erasmus' has now really taken shape, with 7 partners from 6 countries. It is very educational and interesting for us as colleagues to engage with this subject in so many ways and from so many perspectives.

The outcome of this meeting - intellectual output - will be a sustainable lesson design package based on everything we discussed and shared during that week. Our colleagues in Riga will produce these this year.

M2: Antalya, Turchia (novembre 2023) 

E1 (Multiplier Event 1)

IO1 

V1- V2