Zielone szkolne podwórka. Permakultura w mieście.

We wanted to make our students understand the interdependence between different ecosystems and human impact on wildlife. We wanted to develop students' skills and competence highly valued on the ...

We wanted to make our students understand the interdependence between different ecosystems and human impact on wildlife. We wanted to develop students' skills and competence highly valued on the job market such as: critical thinking, speaking their mind, team working ability. We also wanted to promote a comprehensive approach to teaching and learning foreign languages such as English and Spanish. We wanted our students to improve their command and fluency of English (the language of the project) through taking part in international activities and interacting with their peers from Greece, Italy and Spain during one-week meetings in these countries. We wanted the teachers to enrich their teacher's skills and tools . We wanted the school to improve the teaching standards and its standing on the education market.

We made a lot of changes in our schoolyard, for example, we planted some herbs. bushes and trees such as hydrangea, lavender, linden, birch and chestnut trees. We introduced a seasonal crops such as tomatoes, strawberries and herbs: parsley, basil, mint, lovage, rosemary. The students designed, built and hung the insect hotels on the trees. Also, the students prepared and carried out some proecological workshops specially designed for the 3-4 and 5-6- year-olds in the nearby kindergarten. During these activities childrem made insect hotels and herbariums with the help of our students. They also learnt how to recognise typical herbs such as mint, parsley, basil, rosemary. Moreover, they found out what the healing properties and culinary use of these herbs were. Our partners from Greece and Spain also designed and created the school gardens .They planted local herbs and vegetables (lentils, basil, rosemary, tomatoes, pepper). In Italy the herbs and other plants were planted in a mini hydroponic greenhouse. After finishing the school and its area renovation they will be transported and planted in the school garden.

All school partners created, according to permaculture principles, a green schoolyard with local plants, herbs or bushes and made students participate in the garden work. That means, now school communities have a place to relax or carry out classes during nice weather. Students take care of these places and will look after them in the future, became aware of the importance of proecological activities and their impact on the local community. Moreover, during last teaching staff meetings, in all schools, a lot of time was spent on sharing the "Green schoolyards" outcomes with the whole school teaching staff and cosidering the positive results of the project on both students and teachers. As a result there has been a greater awareness of the importance of the Erasmus projects for the internationalization of our schools and a greater interest in supporting these activities. We gained new partners, learnt a lot from them, strengthened our cooperation. Moreover, the engagement in the ecological project increased the prestige and the school standing on the education market. Now the school can offer higher standards of teaching.