Description
The main aim of the project is to work out an e-compendium of interactive tasks for upper secondary school students on the topic of national parks (protected areas) as a way to integrate the green growth and sustainability issues into teaching process. The materials will include games, quizzes, questionnaires and measuring tasks that will be tested in Lahemaa National Park (Estonia) and Ytre Oslofjor National Park (Norway), but they can be used in any natural protected area of any country. The project partners are Narva Language Lyceum in Estonia and Malakoff videregående skole in Norway. The project teams are teachers of biology, physics, chemistry, geography and English. During 17 months the teachers will develop and test the materials, improve them and make an e-version of the tasks (e-compendium) that will be open to public. The tasks will have a cross-curriculum meaning and integrate several subjects. The project period is 01.09.2014 – 31.01.2016.
Summary of project results
The main aim of the project was to work out an e-compendium of interactive tasks for upper-secondary school students on the topic of national parks (protected areas) as a way to integrate the green growth and sustainability issues into teaching process. The materials include various tasks, which were tested in Estonia and Norway, but they can be used in any natural protected area of any country. The project teams were teachers of biology, physics, chemistry, geography and English. During 17 months the teachers developed and tested the materials, improved them and made an e-version of the tasks (e-compendium) that is open to public:
http://estnorpro.weebly.com/. The tasks have a cross-curriculum meaning and integrate several subjects. The project period was 01.09.2014 – 31.01.2016. The project materials got a recognition by Estonian and Norwegian experts. The project had following outcomes: 1.Five international meetings were carried out 2.The teachers established good cooperation and communication and worked together without external assistance 3.The materials were worked out and tested with Estonian and Norwegian students 4.The project e-compendium is available in several languages:
http://estnorpro.weebly.com/ The project activities and results have impact on the following groups: 1. The project teams (managers and teachers): they got experience of working in international project, development of modern teaching materials, field work on testing new materials. The teachers improved their fluency in English and learnt to integrate different school subjects in order to help students to understand the world processes better. Creation of e-compendium improved the teachers’ competences in methodology and didactics. 2. Students of the partner schools: they took part in testing new materials, they received new exciting and challenging tasks, so their learning process can more interesting and effective, they understand world processes better. 3. Partner institutions tested new way of cooperation, developed their international networks and improved teachers’ competences. All planned activities were carried out and all planned results (e-compendium, meetings) were achieved.
Summary of bilateral results
Partner institutions tested new way of cooperation, developed their international networks and improved teachers’ competences. The Project Promoter didn't find a common language with representatives of the first partner school but they managed to replace the partner. The cooperation with the second partner was very fruitful and as a result of cooperation the partners learnt about each other’s cultures, ways and approaches. They managed to establish professional and warm personal relations. It was interesting and important for them to see differences and similarities of their work and develop new initiatives together. A joint product - e-compendium - was developed in different languages. The partnership discovered that principles and approaches in education are quite similar and it is easy to understand each other. The level of students is also close. The tasks prepared in Norway and ones prepared in Estonia can be used in both countries.