PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Our project, Eco Europe. It-s up to you *IT'S UP2U Would like to make conscious, children and teachers, about the importance of small or individual actions. Very often all of us open a tap water or use a paper, switch the lights on without thinking what is behind. Our resources are not unlimited and we have to be responsible when using. Small actions are very important to reach big objectives. Every action done by everyone of us is a big and necessary step. Aware of the necessity of reuse, the beauty of old or used things to avoid overconsumption is a goal to the present culture. Using this subject, we are setting a list of activities that make people know and think about the effects of human living on the nature, but always facing the future, we have to find solutions for our problems and make children to feel actively involved.

Thinking on that, we are ranging a list of activities which pupils should solve working in groups and the displaying the results on different media. We will work on this subject practising different learning methodologies and check the results. Partners for our project gathered around the idea of diversifying teaching methods used in our institutions and re-orienting our approach towards the processes of teaching and learning. We all recognize the room for improvement in our schools and are determined to explore alternative ways working with students.

Our goal is diversifying the used methodology by introducing teaching methods that will foster students' self motivation and sense of responsibility for their own education, in other words, will help them build their " learner autonomy ".

The need for new approach is particularly urgent in case of the significant number of students in our school with learning difficulties and special education needs. Because they often fail to achieve satisfactory results in traditional lessons, many of them gradually lose motivation for learning. Sense of failure impairs they self-steem, which add to their problems and diminishes their chance of success in further education. We need methods that will better suit their needs and enable them to achieve success, fostering their selgf-confidence.

What is more, the traditional methods, concentrated on teaching knowledge, no longer fit the needs of students in terms of their further education and future employment. We have to employ methods that concentrate more on developing in our students skills they will need after leaving the school. To make the required changes in our schools possible, the teachers need to learn and practise new methods of working with students, but also to improve their own language competence and ICT skills.

Teachers intend to explore new routes in teaching, to void such dangers as boredom and discouragement, which threaten both their students and themselves. They want to find new means to achieve theirultimate goal: cultivating and nurturing children's natural enthusiasm for learning, curiosity and creativity, which, though possessed each child entering school for the fist time, are often seriously diminished after just a few years of formal education.

They will explore methods that will enable them to better equip children for their further education and future work and that will help in particular those students who fail to achieve satisfactory results in traditional lessons. We have chosen an important subject that is present in everyday life of all of us. The small but very important actions we can do everyday to help our environment. Research, team work and display results through new methodologies.

We have guidelines for our research. We think the solutions lie in allowing students more power in decisions concerning their own learning and in letting children learn by working in teams on performing practical, creative tasks. We see the need of increasing in our schools the utilization of modern tools of ICT, loved by all children. We would also like to reinstate the element of fun in learning, so often banned from our schools.

After all that we have to promote the communication and dissemination. Both very important in our culture nowadays. Different kinds of presentations through different media. They have to exchange information, explain conclusions, debate results with their colleagues and other country colleagues on a foreign language, videoconferences, radio programs, local newspapers, posters presenting an event, etc.

Etwinning and the twinspace should be the safe platform to share all the results and be in touch with the rest of European teachers and pupils.

Pupils and teachers will assess the projeft and make improvements. Parents can also be part of the project.

Living all that experiences make you more open mind person, more tolerant, able to share your opinions on a group, with more ICT practice and much more Environment conscious, with better foreign languages use to be better teacher and student person.