Students from Greece, Spain and Italy collaborated in the eTwinning project “Are you ready for… merry go round with a red vest?” during the school year 2021-2022. 

Inspired by the book Made on Earth of Wolfgang Korn, the students discovered the meaning of globalization and of circular economy. They realized that they can be part of the change that will better our world and make us all live together in peace.

Here you can find the activities carried out by students in order to identify actions that can promote the protection of our environment. They studied the habits of children in different parts of Europe through Statistics and they created posters to encourage good behaviors in schools, to support sustainable development.

The activity

Subjects

• Statistics and Mathematics
• Science and Technology
• Social studies
• Art
• Native language and/or English as second language

MaiN GOALS

Science and Tecnology:

• Understand and reproduce the life cycle of products
• Recognize the connections between human behaviour and greenhouse effect and between human behaviour and pollution
• Know what waste is with particular regard to plastic waste

Statistics and Mathematics:

Learn to conduct investigations using the statistical inquiry cycle:

• posing and answering questions
• gathering, sorting, and displaying data
• reading data from tables and charts
• communicating findings based on the data

Art:

Use creativity and imagination to represent own ideas, thoughts and feelings through Technology and Art

Social studies:

• Develop awareness about the impact that behaviours can have on environment
• Promote responsible production and consumption
• Support and promote positive social and environmental relations in schools and cities
• Strengthen participation in community life

21^St century skills

• Sense in entrepreneurship
• Problem solving skills
• Communication skills 
• Ability to work in a team and collaboration
• Creativity

Connection to STEM careers

Employability skills developed:

• communication:  learn to listen and to speak to each other respecting roles, turns, ideas
• problem solving: explore complex problems by building the understanding through research and by analysing the causes and effects
• creativity: generate new ideas by combining different concepts
• team building: work well with others by understanding and respecting different cultures, beliefs and backgrounds; contribute to group decision making, recognizing the value of others’ ideas and contributions
• aiming high:  work with care and attention to details and use a positive approach to new challenges

Teaching resources

Materials: PC, smart board, paper, pencils, colored pencils, felt-tip pens, cardboard

Online tools and resources:

• Science and technology
  • Terra mission – waste
  • Terra mission – circular economy
• Mathematics and Statistics
  • Google form
  • Google sheets
• Social studies
  • Reuse, reduce, recycle – educational video
  • Reduce, reuse, recycle – song
  • Its up to me and you – song
• Art
  • https://www.artsteps.com/
  • https://bookcreator.com/

Age of students: 7 – 11 years old

Process

Preparation activities

At first we collected plastic and paper waste from one or more days before the start of the activities.

Afterwards we displayed it to students and asked them what would happen to all this stuff. 

At last, in a brainstorming, we asked ourselves if all this waste was good for the environment and what we could do to minimize its environmental impact.

Science activities

We introduced students to the concept of waste and pollution, greenhouse effect and life cycle of a product and we then reflected on how human behaviour can impact the environment.

We asked students to answer to questions like these ones: 

• Are there some habits that can impact our environment?
• In your opinion, do students have the same behaviour in all schools and in all countries?
• Are there some actions that can help schools to become more environmentally-friendly?

statistics activities

We invited students:

• to choose a habit that can impact the environment to investigate
• to create questions for a survey to compare their behaviour with their European friends’ one.

We created the survey using google forms and shared it with our European mates, inviting them to answer.

Once the survey’s responses were acquired, we invited students to:

• collect data, organize them in tables and create charts by using a tool or by hand,
• analyze data and charts,
• share their results with their European mates. 

We proposed  them to read the results of the other schools’ surveys.

For this task we worked with the whole class or in small groups, according to the students’ needs and possibilities.

Social studies activities

We invited students to think on how they could improve their habits to enhance a more sustainable development. Furthermore, they reflected on what they could do to share their new knowledge in their school and community.

We supported their attention and motivation using videos and songs about this topic.

Art activities

At the end we asked students to work in a team and to draw a poster with a motto to promote good habits connected with their surveys. 

Assessment

We evaluated both the products and the process of the students’ learning path. To do this we payed particular attention to the outcomes of brainstorming and discussions, to the products and to the posters.

To keep students engaged in their learning process and have a formative assessment we made questions at the beginning and at the end of each lesson. We asked students to write or speak  for a few minutes about the most meaningful thing they learnt and we collected their answers. 

As a final assessment we evaluated students’ products: charts and tables, the ability to read and to connect data with real life and the Art posters.

Final products

We collected all the surveys and results in this e-book.

We created a sustainability corner in our schools.

Have a look to our virtual Art exhibition that was created in order to involve the community.

You can also play this sustainability game: by solving all the quizzes, you will earn your environmental awareness certificate.

Conclusion

The cooperation between teachers  was one of the main points of the project and allowed us to go on with the activities, in spite of some problems connected with the CoronaVirus emergency. 

We used several online tools and applications to facilitate collaboration and communication between students and teachers. Besides, most of the activities were implemented in class so that students were able to work collaboratively, exchange and discuss.

Teachers adapted the activities and the teaching methods to the needs of their students, with regards to their age, country and interests.

Most of the activities were implemented in English as a second language. However, given the early age of some students, teacher’s mediation was essential in many activities.

After the project, students understood that STEM subjects help in understanding real life problems. During the process they learnt that they can be an active part of the change, because they can act for a more sustainable development. This fact made them feel very proud of their work.

It was also very interesting for them to observe the questions asked by their European mates, to give their answers and to observe similarities and differences in the various types of habits.

Students often see Maths as a boring or even scaring subject. Kids who have difficulties with this subject can benefit from creative Math activities that involve games and Art. To help them to look at Maths from different perspectives and to involve them all, from the most motivated ones to those with special educational needs or disabilities, we developed a STEM activity in which Maths, Technology and Art meet.

Schools all around Europe challenged each other in a Tangram contest. 

Students worked in pair with a mate from another country to share tangram images and they integrated them in a piece of Art.

Partners’ schools

• L’estagnol Sainte-Eulalie – France
• AEAP, EB1 Sarzedas – Portugal 
• I.C. Merate (LC) – Italy
• I.C. Villaputzu (CA) – Italy
• Kocatepe Primary School Ankara – Türkiye

The activity

goals

• develop a positive attitude towards Geometry
• gain comprehension of spatial relationships
• understand how geometric shapes can be decomposed
• develop spatial rotation and translation skills
• learn the meaning of equiscomponibility
• develop problem solving skills
• appreciate the international dimension of STEM

Age of students

7 – 11 years old

Materials

PC or tablets, online tangram tools, physical tangram, sheets, colored pencils or felt-tip pens

Process

We started our activity by pairing up students.

In each team, the students realized a drawing using a Tangram online tool and shared it with their mates. 

Their coworkers reproduced the drawing using a physical tangram made either by wood, cardboard, plastic or paper. They also added a handmade drawing as a background, therefore creating a suitable landscape for the Tangram image.

At the end, everyone could see that their virtual work became a physical piece of Art in another school.

final products

We collected all the drawings in a collaborative e-book.

Have also a look to our a virtual Art exhibition.

Conclusion

Art activities combined with Geometry have significantly contributed to developing the students’ creativity and imagination and brought them closer to Mathematics in a playful and fun way.

The possibility to work in a team with students from other countries kept their motivation high and, consequentially, they developed the ability to work in a team.

Combining work using technological tools with manual Art activities represented a further stimulus to involve the students, encouraging them to work to the best of their ability.