Mind Over Matter

Project Meetings

1. Contact seminary – Athens, November 2008

Northern Ireland, Wales, Greece and Romania establish an ESD partnership between four primary schools.

2. First meetingThe first meeting, established for April 2010, in UK,

had been cancelled and replanned for March 2011. A very natural environmental cause- the volcano’s eruption in Iceland and the ash cloud which didn’t allow flying.

3. Palaio Faliro School (Greece) – October 2010

The partners visited Palaio Faliro School, next to Athens, a friendly and colored school. They spoke with the children and admired the classrooms, the library and the sport ground also.

Children and teachers offered an interesting presentation of school, an extraordinary performance and everyone had time for knowing the others.

All the partners presented their activities and materials for dissemination and interest was special because we SEE all the schools for the first time. We compared buildings, children, activities, results and ideas. After one year, we were happy to discover that it’s possible to be a successful project for everybody.

The Greek partners exposed their methods to involve more active little children in environmental problems. One of these methods is through electronic games and animation and it is successful. All the project partners received CD-s with these games to test them in their own schools.

Visiting Sol Energy Station and Navy Museum were opportunities to understand how important is for Greece these two energy sources : sun and water and how they understand to use them for a real benefit.

Shipping is very important for Greeks and Corint Channel proves that. The Greek experience was completed with Mikenis, Napflion and Acropolis, three pages

in Greece history. This first meeting offered a fairly image about country, people, schools and

environmental concerns. We discovered also many similarities between Greek and Romanian educational systems.

At last all the partners succeeded to meet in British Isles! And our first station was the Emerald Island, the British part, Northern Ireland and our partner school: Ballynure School.

Severe, clean and tidy outside, the school is very lively and coloured inside. The children are well schooled, attentive and lovely. The program was combined: presentations of the project with artistic and cultural moments ( poems, songs, little plays and dance) and everybody – children, teachers and guests – were relaxed.

The main environmental ideas of Ballynure School are connected to biodiversity, energy, water and transporting. Everywhere is clean, birds and little wild animals are protected and nourished, the rainwater is collected. Children learn to reduce the energy consumption and which are the different energy sources.

Their drawings, panels and displays, their songs and plays proved their continued concerns for environmental activities. Actually, Ballynure School is involved for many years in the ECO School Program and has the Green Flag but also the Silver Flag and are working to obtain the Golden Flag.

Together we visited Antrim Coast, Bushmills Distilery (very old, from XVII century) and Causeway Giant – an extraordinary geologic zone- protected by the government but also with the common people support.

An interesting moment was to visit the Northern Ireland Parliament and to attend a parliamentary session on Education problems. Very impressed, we understood how important and considered is Education in UK.

4. Ballynure School, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom) – March 2011

5. Llandegfan Ysgol, Anglesey – Wales (United Kingdom) – March 2011

Water is everywhere: Irish Sea and rain. And wind and Snowdonia covered by mist. But people are very friendly, lively and warmly. We started the Welsh project activities with James Hindson’s presentation about Sustainability ( James presented at the original Comenius Contact Seminary in Athens in October 2008). We all were very pleasant to meet him as a British Council Representative and to share our ideas and experiences.

The school, severe and tidy outside, is like a fairytale house inside. There are no doors here, but the space is large and teachers and pupils have no problem in their specific activities. And they really do a lot of activities. The educational system is like in Ballynure, but Llandegfan Ysgol is involved in more and different activities. As Ballynure, Welsh school works in ECO School Program and they have already The Green Flag, The Silver Flag and The Golden Flag.

But there are many others activities: sport competitions (and a lot of Cups obtained!), theatre and a famous choir. This choir sings especially Welsh songs, because Llandegfan is a bilingual school: English and Wesh too, and goes on tours in whole Wales. The Welsh talent for music, sport and acting and the passion for jolly colors are evident. They preserve their Welsh language, history and land, their symbols (Red Dragon and daffodils) but also they are very concerned by modern problems like environment and development sustenability.

The good practice is present everywhere: drawings, panels – inside, an ecological playground and a wild garden – outside, even a vegetable garden. All these were made by teachers, children and parents, which are very involved, work with passion and speak with passion about their work. Even the headmaster has arranged a space where live some little insects and worms and takes care of them.

The project presentation was a successful because the children were really interested by the other partner schools. They had a lot of questions, they wanted to know many things about our countries and our school activities. They had received with interest and pleasure our dissemination materials.

We had the opportunity to see the first ECO School built in Anglesey – Ysgol y Graig, with modern decoration from recycled materials.

The project meeting in Wales was a really ESD lesson.

6.Scoala cu clasele I-VIII Rebricea, Romania - May 2011

Project meeting in Romania was very exciting for everybody. The host teachers and children wanted to offer and show everything and the guests were for the first time in this country.

The timetable tried to combine cultural and national knowledge with the project issues. It was a long way from Bucharest to Iasi for all the partners, but with no problems, and Iasi sightseeing in the

next day was the first-hand contact with Romanian space and people. They liked Botanical Garden and considered bigger than their own Gardens and appreciated the green spaces in

the city. The old architecture fascinated them, the Greek partners found a lot of similarities with Athens buildings and Irish partners were impressed how lively is Moldavia main city.

School visit was a successful. The partners had possibility to see our modern school, to meet teachers and children and share information about educational systems from each country. They understood better what we worked in almost two years and how the project changed school activities, mentalities, behaviours and habits. They also had the possibility to admire our hard worked garden and our beautiful and jolly playground.

Between school children and guests was an emotional connection, they liked one each other from the beginning. The children performance underlined two main occasions: Independence Day of Romania and our traditional songs and dances, but also the theme of the project: English

songs and a Waste Fashion Parade. All the project teams had PowerPoint presentations and offered traditional gifts and dissemination materials.

The Major of Rebricea District also offered gifts to all the partner schools. Because this was the last project meeting, we tried to conclude about our results and to discuss about our final products , evaluations and reports.

It was a busy and tired meeting, but with great satisfaction for everybody. Visiting Bicaz Dam and Bicaz-Stejaru Hydroelectric offered a larger image about Energy importance and

Romanian sources of Energy. The Bicaz Gorges National Park evidenced Romanian efforts to protect biodiversity. Large distances between the project objectives that were visited made the Romanian meeting an extraordinary

experience and our partners were excited and interested all the time. At the end, nobody wanted to accept this was our last meeting. We all wanted to believe we will find another

opportunity to continue this beautiful and useful cooperation.

THE END…