Ecosystems around us... by Anna Szczepaniak

Ecosystems around us…

About our project On the project ‘Ecosystems around us – Greek and Polish children leading to meaningful education through concept maps’ we were working for two school years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011. The project participants were working on the following ecosystems: mountainous, forest, aquatic, lowland and urban. Students made mind maps by hand using different sources (books and the Internet). Later they were fimiliarized with a new ICT tool mind42, and started making mind maps on-line. The next step was drawing and painting pictures of chosen ecosystems with descriptions in English and mother language. The last step of our work was making powerpoint presentations and photofilms about ecosystems. A wiki was created (http://ecosystemsaroundus.wikispaces.com), where the best works were put. To see the progress of the project posts were written in the project diary http://twinblog.etwinning.net/16948/.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity Our project promoted the importance of innovation and creativity for the following reasons: 1) To introduce ICT’s in the educational process by utilizing multimodal means and connecting them with Greek and Polish curriculum. 2) To enhance learning through the use of concept maps 3) To familiarize the students with a Social Networking Environment (wiki) and the use of concept maps. 4) To let older students teach younger ones and realize both teaching and learning opportunities through “peer teaching” method. 5) To cultivate critical and creative thinking. 6) To connect the school to society and other European schools through network and by motivating the teachers beyond conventional programs. 7) To help create an “Open School” and interconnected teaching groups.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Urban ecosystem mind map by mind42, Karol, SP 9 Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Water ecosystem by mind42, School of Palio

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Water ecosystem – mind map, Ada & Andżelika, SP9 Dzierżoniów

Forest ecosystem – mind map, Kacper M., SP9 Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Curricular integration Environmental Studies constitutes a single learning area with an interdisciplinary character, incorporating elements of the natural, social, religious, cultural, historical and economic environment, New Technologies, e.t.c. The students had to achieve the following in the lesson: 1) To become familiar with the Greek and Polish ecosystems. 2) To understand the importance of flora and fauna for the people living in that region. 3) To find similarities and differences between the ecosystems of both countries. 4) To realize that environmental problems and common to the countries in Europe and the world in general. The ecosystems, the students worked on, were taught in the unit “Nature in our home” in the Greek Environmental Studies book. The ecosystems we studied are the following: Mountainous Ecosystem, Sea/Marine Ecosystem, Lowland Ecosystem, Urban Ecosystem. To sum up, this interaction between students of two different countries had as a result to respect ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity.

Lowland ecosystem, Karolina Z., SP 9 Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Students are working on ‘Ecosystems…’ , SP 9 Dzierżoniów

Mountainous ecosystem, Andżelika M., SP9Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Marine ecosystem, School of Palio

Knowing water ecosystem, School of Palio School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Creative use of ICT The systematic educational use of concept maps together with the use of ICT and the need to integrate collaborative environments in Primary Education were the reasons of both schools to use the Web2.0 tool “mind42” (http://mind42.com) and develop a Social Networking Environment, a wiki tool(http://ecosystemsaroundus.wikispaces.com). For the processing of photos, videos and sound we used the following online programs: http://www.picasa.com, http://www.slide.com, http://www.flickr.com, www.slideshare.net , www.picturetrail.com , http://issuu.com http://www.youtube.com, www.voki.com and www.gimp.com. We also worked with Movie Maker, Powerpoint and Impress. With the use of ICT’s we tried to achieve the following: 1) To enable students to gain easy access to primary and secondary internet sources related to Environmental Studies (visits to wiki tools, Web pages, electronic libraries, internet blogs, e.t.c.) 2) To become familiar with Social Networking Environment (wiki). 3) To familiarize the students with an online collaborative use of concept maps. 4) To encourage students to use ICT’s and develop skills in Digital Literacy. 5) To develop students’ ability to communicate in different national, linguistic and cultural contexts.

A slide from a presentation about ecosystem of the Owl Mountains, Wojciech S., SP9 Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Powerpoint presentation about mountainous ecosystem, Wojtek K. SP 9 Dzierżoniów

Powerpoint presentation about Baltic Sea ecosystem, Marta Cz., SP 9 Dzierżoniów

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Powerpoint presentation about urban ecosystem of Dzierżoniów, Aleksandra K., SP 9 Dzierżoniów.

Moovie Maker film, Karolina Z., SP 9 Dzierżoniów School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Collaboration between partner schools There was an equal allocation of activities on both sides throughout the duration of the program. The two teachers could exchange ideas about the program and the use of ICT’s in educational process. We used tools from the eTwinning platform, such as: twinspace, twinblog and tools from the Web2.0 (Wiki). Approximately 60 students from both countries took part in the project which lasted from October 2009 until June 2011. The wiki tool with host Wikispaces was developed so as to familiarize students with the computer and the wiki tools as well. They exchanged opinions, worked together and communicated and also developed their Social Web identity through the wiki tool: http://ecosystemsaroundus.wikispaces.com. We worked in all aspects of the project along with the students and at all levels, cognitive and educational, with great results in learning, emotional empowerment and the cultivation of creative and critical thinking as assessed by interviews and questionnaires completed by the students.

Project Twinspace

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Home page of our project wikispace website

Project diary

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Sustainability and Transferability We believe that our project with mind maps has already extended to other subjects and classes in our schools. Our project had multiple effects on students, parents and other teachers: 1) It was presented on 5th of March 2010 in a seminar for teachers in the Public Library in Kavala. 2) It was also presented to the parents, students and other teachers at the end of the school year in School of Palio Kavala. 3) In May 2010, a team from Protovoulia took interviews of Greek students and video with presentations of the eTwinning program for ecosystems, which was uploaded at protovoulia's site: www.protovoulia.org.

4) It was presented on 10th of October 2010 to teachers in Kavala as part of a seminar organized by the head of Environmental Education of Kavala. 5) It was presented in April 2011 in Alexandroupoli on a Conference for Physics Science. And ICT’s. 6) In June 2011 articles about this project appeared in the website of local government in Dzierżoniów and in local magazine in Dzierżoniów.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Results and Benefits In Lisbon 2000, the EU member states decided about the participation of the citizen in the field of knowledge and information. This can be possible through participatory and collaborative learning and the use of New Technologies. By developing environmental programs through national and European platforms, such as e-Twinning, we can educate tomorrow’s citizens of the 21st century so as to become active members of this multicultural and globalized society. We believe that this is the most significant benefit of our project. In addition, the most important result of our program was the excellent collaboration with colleagues and students of another European country with a different culture, cultural and linguistic heritage and a different education system, with the use of ICT’s. What we achieved and gained throughout the whole experience was that finally there is more in our nature that unites us than there is that divides us. Despite all differences we share the same blue sky and bright sun! Therefore, we should protect the environment and fight for our common future through joint actions!

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Awards won by Ecosystems around us… Our project has been awarded with the following awards: 1. National Quality Labels in Poland and Greece.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

2. European Quality Labels in Poland and Greece

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

2. Polish school was awarded with the Winner Certificate for Europe competition on Biodiversity organized by Spring Day for Europe 2010.

Winners with their awards in action

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us… 4.

On 6th June 2011 we were awarded with the National eTwinning Award in Poland for the 2nd place in cathegory: 'Our project eTwinning 2011'. The ceremony took place in Toruń.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Publication about the finalist projects written by Polish NSS 5. On 23 June 2011 we were awarded with the Award "Excellence and Best Practices in Primary and Secondary Education" by the Minister of Education in Athens.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

6. On the 8th of October 2011 we've been awarded with the 3rd prize in the Competition "Education and Technology" with the collaboration of University of Peiraius, Lambraki Foundation, Microsoft Hellas and Intel Hellas.

7. In February 2012 we found out that our project is among the best eight European projects (age cathegory 4-11) for the European eTwinning Awards 2012.

School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland

Ecosystems around us…

Table of contents: About our project……………………………………………..2 Pedagogical Innovation and Creativity………………….…..3 Curricular integration………………………...……………...7 Creative use of ICT…………………………………………..10 Collaboration between partner schools………………….…13 Sustainability and Transferability………………………….15 Results and Benefits…………………………………………16 Awards won by Ecosystems around us………………….….17

European eTwinning Conference Berlin 29-31 March 2012 School of Palio, Greece & SP 9 Dzierżoniów, Poland