Earth Day 2015 in Austria

Enjoy the video!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9UlRFXlb5g

ERASMUS+ TEACHER’S MEETING Mo, 3.10.2017 to Fr, 7.10.2017

After intensive preparation work we welcomed colleagues from Slovenia, Italy, Denmark, Finland, Poland and Spain at our school. Nine months after the last meeting in Pietarsaari, Finland, there was a lot to catch up on.

The topic of the meeting in Vienna was: “Web 2.0 Tools and Cultural Diversity“.

On Tuesday, October 4th, our guests were welcomed with a welcome song of our school choir.

Welcome song by our school choir

 After the official opening of the meeting by Birthe Witt Jason, the project coordinator from Denmark, the first workshop on Web 2.0 started.

Opening of meeting by Birthe Witt Jason

An expert from a neighbouring grammar school, Josef Buchner, introduced methods and strategies to use Web 2.0 tools in class. He focussed on the tool of the “Flipped Classroom“.

In the afternoon we had a guided tour through a museum in an old church. The tour is called „Dialogue in the Dark“ and the guides are blind or visually impaired, which makes the tour very authentic and provides insights into how blind people cope with the challenges of everyday life.

In order to make our guests acquainted with the heart of Vienna, we used a Web 2.0 tool called “Actionbound“, which takes you on an online scavenger hunt.

On Wednesday, October 5th, our guests were welcomed by our head teacher Dagmar Kerschbaumer and were guided through the school building by students of our school.

Welcome by headteacher D. Kerschbaumer

In a workshop, our guests reported on the activities which had already taken place at their schools and which impact the work of the Erasmus+ Teams had on their schools.

After lunch, our colleagues had a chance to experience Vienna’s public transport system when we travelled from Heustadelgasse to a hilly part of Vienna called Grinzing, which is well-known for its vineyards and wine taverns. Although it was a cold and windy day, we were all motivated to hike to the circle of trees called “Lebensbaumkreis“, corresponding the signs of the zodiac.

Hiking in Grinzing

The last day of the teachers‘ meeting focussed on preparing the workshops for the approaching students‘ meeting in November/December 2016 on “Cultural Diversity“.

Our farewell dinner was, of course, at a “Heurigen“, a wine tavern typical of this area and of Vienna.

Earth Day in Pietarsaaren lukio

Pietarsaaren lukio participated in Earth Day by small but significant eco deeds. The idea of the day was to teach ecological  thinking within the lessons and by consuming less electricity and fossil fuels. 

Ride your bike to school!

The students and teachers were asked to ride their bikes to school instead of driving their cars or getting a ride. The idea was to come to school with the person’s own energy, so in addition to biking, it was recommended to walk, rollerblade or skateboard to school. Many students and teachers took the chance as they do every school day throughout the year despite the weather.

Ecologigal topics in class

All the teachers were asked to teach ecological values in their own subjects. For instance, on an English lesson, the topic of consuming less was discussed. 

- Some of the students even made a commitment to stop buying certain products for a month, tells Teija Kauppinen, teacher of English.

Switch off the light, please!

A great idea, which the students came up with, was to study without any electricity. In a modern school, it is a little bit difficult, but at least it was partially carried out. In physics, biology and English, the teachers decided to switch off the lights on the lesson. On a chemistry lesson, the teacher only wrote with a chalk on a black board with the lights switched off. A sunny spring day made it possible.

This is about changing attitudes with small steps, says Anna-Maija Lyyra, the biology and geography teachers. - Everybody can do his share quite easily.

Marja Seppälä, the religion teacher took the students on an Apostolic walk in order to take a look at the religious places of the town. In the beginning of the lesson, they also made an experiment of surrounding a tree holding each others hands. On a philosophy lesson, Marja took the students to meet a tree and have a dialogue in a Buberian way.

Green clothing

Many students honored the theme by dressing in green. Different shades of green reminded everyone of the Earth Day and the importance and necessity to stop the climate change and to protect nature.

Meeting in Finland

In January 2016 it was time for our next meeting organized in Pietarsaari, Finland.

The meeting was held in two “waves”: The teachers arrived on Thu 14^th and left the following Monday while the second wave of students  and accompanying teachers arrived on Saturday evening leaving the following Friday. That meant that the whole group of teachers and students + all the local teachers and students (about 70) spent the greatest day outdoors in Nanoq (The arctic museum) and Merilä (the congregation camp center) also enjoying the beautiful winter landscape and outdoor activities eg. walking on the ice or in the silent forest. One aspect of sustainable development, the key issue of Pietarsaari meeting, is the cultural aspect and that was implemented in our day in the museum and in nature.

During the teachers and coordinators´ meeting they had eg. a chance to discuss the best teaching practices and ideas considering sustainable development, listen to the lectures about Finnish ECO-school in Pietarsaari and Nature school in the neighbor city, Kokkola, and of course plan the future of the whole project. As promoting good health is also an essential  part of sustainable development, the teachers were offered to try yoga and even test their limits - and sure they did: Most of the teachers were brave enough not only to sit in the hot sauna but also take a dip in the freezing ocean at Strandis.  At least the dinner in Ädelbragd in Oravainen on Sunday evening was quite an experience for our foreign teachers: the food offered in the 18^th century style and the vividly told details about the fight in Oravainen as part of the Finnish war will probably stay in their minds for a long time.

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The first day of the students´ week was spent in Merilä and as they had arrived late the previous evening, the day was also spent to get to know each other a bit better.

There was a lot of laughter, joy and excitement (and snow fights) in the air as the students and teachers enjoyed this perfect though a bit chilly day outdoors. The weather was almost perfect the whole week: the temperatures varied between -15 to -30, but the cold was not a problem: there were hardly any complaints and most of the people were well informed and well equipped to face the chilly weather.

On different afternoons the students and teachers tried skating in the skating rink, skiing in the school park, took a Nordic walking –tour to music café After Eight and finally sledging in almost freezing temperatures. For most people all the activities were new and exciting, but there were also a few who had tried some of them earlier.

On Monday the actual work considering environmental issues and sustainable development got started. After discussing a very touching HOME-movie (students had watched it at home) and planning posters based on it, it was time to get to work with the main theme during the week and form the international groups. The work started by watching the videos made by each country trying to gather possible environmental problems and choosing one of them to be solved. The students were offered ideas how to think as creatively as possible and the model that they used to analyse the problem and the reasons behind it was called Fishbone analysis created by Japanese Kaoru Ishikawa. The aim was to create 2 different solutions to the problem: both realistic and the futuristic one, and when Thursday finally arrived, we were able to see unbelievably creative solutions and lively presentations, because also the form of the presentation was open.

In addition to this project lasting the whole week the students´ knowledge about the environment and the importance of nature preservation and sustainable development definitely increased when they had a chance to visit Ekorosk, an exceptional waste disposal facility in Pietarsaari. On Wednesday morning the students gave their individual, ecological promises to reduce their ecological foot print and all of them were and are to be seen by everybody else on a big blanket.

Considering the cultural aspect of sustainable development, we wanted the students to present and teach something small from their own home country: That was organized in the form of a short cultural assembly on Thursday morning. 

The grand finale to the whole week was the farewell party and Finnish evening on that evening where the students and teachers had a chance to taste typical Finnish treats, listen to and sing Finnish music, play some games and of course, meet Santa himself!

During the week and project tasks but especially in other activities (ice swimming, evening at school and hanging around together) they created long-lasting friendships and that is as important as any end product of the week – if even more important.

Teija Kauppinen
English teacher
Pietarsaaren lukio

When we arrived back from Spain, we got the idea of presenting entrepreneurship work we did there to our fellow classmates. So we got the necessary materials like the questionnaire and the canvas and got to work. We also did the six thinking hats technique. They divided themselves into groups and got to work. They took the tasks seriously and at the end of the two periods they presented their work to others. We did this in two classes.

Janez Vončina & Gašper Rejc

Meeting in Barcelona, Spain

For us, Slovenians, the meeting started on Sunday. After a ride from Slovenia to Treviso, Italy we took a plane to Barcelona. With our spirits high, we arrived later in the afternoon meeting our hosts at the enormous airport of Barcelona. That day, we just settled in our newfound homes and went out for a dinner with some other students from the exchange and we experienced our first long, sandwich full Spanish dinner.

 Pictured: Working with the 6 Thinking hats techinque

The next day however, our work started. After a brief introduction about that week's plan, we also got the chance to get to know each other. The work started in groups made up of students of different nationalities. We talked about what it takes to be an entrepreneur and what skills matter. After some brainstorming, we hopped on the metro to CaixaLab. This is an organisation where we were presented with a guided tour of some important Spanish entrepreneurs, creative thinking and thinking outside of the box. We had a lot of interactive "games" where we tried to solve a problem in a, if possible, the most creative way. We saw how some everyday product is a really simple solution to a (an obvious) problem. We also had our first glimpse of a business plan and did some work with that.

Over the course of the following days, we started working in our groups more intensively. We all wrote down our problems and possible solutions to them. With a method called 6 Thinking Hats, we found out which problem and solution could potentially be the best to try and solve. After we all agreed on one, we went to work. We perfected the idea and assigned roles to work towards it. Each did his part and we all helped each other if needed. With our business plan complete we also made a presentation and presented our project to others at the end of the week. I can safely say that all the groups completed their projects, but ours was definitely top notch!

So to draw the line, for entrepreneurship the most important skill to have is creative thinking. But you also need to be hard working, patient and ready to meet different people who you will need to help your idea become a reality. I think that this project really taught me how to work better as a group and to be ready to listen do different inputs and work them into what you do. Sometimes a group's vision really helps you to make something better for a majority in case you are limited by your vision.

And now to draw the line for the social aspect of the meet. In the afternoons, after the work was over our Spanish friends usually took us for a walk around the city. We saw many monuments of Barcelona and tasted some Catalonian and Spanish cuisine. We took part in many different activities. The week was fun for everybody as we met many people and made friendships and the most important thing to take away from the week is the experience. Experiencing the city, the culture and the people. I think all the students will hold this week in good memory.

Janez Vončina

Peer Education Day in Finland

Pietarsaaren lukio had a Peer Education Day on 22nd of April 2015 as well as many other partner schools. A local newspaper Pietarsaaren Sanomat published an article, and this is a short version of it.

Experiental Peer education day in Pietarsaari Upper Secondary School

One of the teaching- and learning  experiments agreed in InTIMe21 -project was the Peer education day. According to American pedagog, Edgar Dale, and his learning pyramid we learn only 5% by listening to a lecture, 10 % by reading, 50% by discussing but 90% by teaching ourselves. Based on these results we organized a peer education day when the students were able to teach each other and also learn new things themselves.

The basis for this experiment was set in Århus, Denmark last autumn when four students from Pietarsaari Upper Secondary School were able to test this method in practice and teach the lower comprehensive pupils there.

On Wednesday 22^nd April the whole school participated in the event in Pietarsaari.

The students who were willing to teach planned the session themselves. All of them had an assisting teacher who was there to help if needed and who checked the final lesson plan. But the students took care of the actual teaching session all by themselves.

- The experience was awesome! It´s great to teach things you yourself are interested in. At the same time you feel joy and satisfaction to be able to teach things that mean a lot to you, says the French teacher, Aleksi Heikkilä, the first grader in Pietarsaari Upper Secondary School.

The students were also satisfied. – When your peers are teaching, they know how to approach the students, says the second grader, Laura Lepistö.

During the day the students taught all kinds of skills: All the students created a Europass, the document where you can collect all your language skills, studies and diplomas, which may be helpful in applying to a school or for a job. 

In additional 15 workshops the students had the possibility to learn eg. Japanese, programming, baking, playing the piano, acting and volleyball. 
- You should have a day like this on every course, wishes the first grader, Essi Rimmi.

The documentary crew consisting of students was there to save the whole day on video and photos. The history teacher and careers counselor, Heimo Martikainen, followed the day through the lens as well.

-It´s great to see so many potential future teachers who were able to take teaching seriously enough but also humouristically. I believe that many of the novices will end up becoming real teachers in the future, Martikainen predicts.

At the end of the day the whole school gathered in the sports hall where Sofia Kujala, Markus Ojajärvi, Jenna Tuomaala and Vivi Wideman taught the Happy dance for the rest of the school. These students had themselves learned the choreography and taught it to the pupils in Denmark. The hips were moving, hands were clapping and faces were glowing as both teachers and students were learning as equals.

The whole school had an opportunity to experience a new kind of day and feel the power and joy of peer education. With this day in our heads and hearts we are eager to continue towards new, creative teaching- and learning methods.

Text: Tiina Stara

Translation: Teija Kauppinen