Water buddies - active outdoor education

3 sailing clubs from Poland, Italy and Cyprus in collaboration with local schools were working together for 16 months to create an offer and collection of "on the water activities" that aimed to enrich school education by a variety of interesting outdoor activities. The school subjects that we influenced are: physical education, nature classes, general classes of early school education stage, strengthening soft skills. According to the interviews with school teachers in partner countries at the beginning of the project we aimed to answer the teachers needs: - teachers constantly looking for outdoor activities for their pupils and want them to stay active, have fun and learn some skills on the way, - all activities should have some educational purpose, - teachers want to feel safe taking kids outside and be sure that they "learn something”; - they are afraid of the weather conditions and the safety of the kids, so the activities have to be safe and have variety for different weather; - outdoor activities may be of use in the integration of new kids at classroom; - the activities should be inclusive; - appropriate for all kids, even with some disadvantages

For early school education teachers - the project activities enrich the workshop of teachers in general early school education (grades 1 - 3, 6/7 - 10 years old) and nature teachers - to teach kids care of water resources and water fauna and flora, physical education teachers - create attractive and fun water sports activities and at the same time getting familiar with water and combating water fears, spend and make more outdoor activities at schools. For water sports clubs - to enrich clubs offer for schools and strengthen the collaboration between sectors - schools and sport clubs. Open the water sport clubs - sailing, rowing, kayaking etc - to school everyday or sporadic activities and include the activities in the school life and curriculum. The encouraged water sports and water activities to become a normal school day attractions and no only extracurricular activities - it may result in more kids attracted to the water sports as a collateral benefit. 3. For schools - to make the teachers work more attractive and motivate them by implementing more interesting tools in their work, enriching school offer for teachers as well as for students. Implementation: What activities did you implement in your project?

The project was divided into 3 main activities: - preparation of the water sport activities for schools - every organisation prepared 10 activities, later we added water safety features and reflexions. Every activity has educational purpose and builds new skills in kids. - making a videos for project activities - some of them during the Study Visit and some in partner organisations during local events. - Study Visit in Krakow and workshops for schools to test the activities, film and discuss the mythologies and tools used in the project. This main activities included much more activities on local levels in all partner countries: - interviews and needs assessment with local teachers - work with water sport coaches, ecology experts and educators - workshops with local school children to test and record the activities - meetings with other sport clubs and school representatives to present them the project ideas and invite to try and implement some activities in their schools and clubs - promotion of the project - use of the project results on local level in partner countries and implementation in everyday practices and offer.

The project results: 1. collection of videos with activities - to be found on youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7DVz9d8LHpo1tyRnC9KeOm4S05apppDP 2. a booklet for teachers and sport clubs with 30 ideas of activities connected with water that can be done with a class of early school education level - 7-10 years old pupils - english version: https://www.hornkrakow.pl/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Water-Buddies-Activity-Booklet-ENG-to-print_compressed.pdf Polish version: https://www.hornkrakow.pl/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Water-Buddies-Activity-Booklet-PL-to-print-compressed.pdf And partners versions on their web pages and social media. The activities aim to: promote active lifestyle, create a bound of children with water and make them feel safe, promote water sports in everyday educational activities, teach ecology and care of water resources, pays attention to plastic use and cleaning of our water resources, saving water fauna and flora; give teachers attractive forms of early school activities. Study Visit in Poland and 2 workshops with local schools: 40 kids and 6 teachers testing the activities. Local workshops in Cyprus (6 kids, 2 teachers) and Italy (20 kids, 4 teachers) to film and test the activities.