Timeline for when to visit which country and the themes worked with at the time

The countries involved are except for Sweden: Portugal, Italy, Germany, Turkey andPoland. On each trip two teachers follow and five students.

The timetable is as follows:

October 2018, Poland

How to stop peer violence shown through creating a keychain of plastic using a 3D printer.

March 2019, Portugal

Interview series of people about what tolerance is for them.

June 2019, Germany

Different aspects of poverty.

October 2019, Turkey (North)

What are our differences? processed by creating a poster that is interactive.

February 2020, Italy

Disabled people - there needs and abilities viewed through an interactive comic strip with the theme "The Same". 

June 2020, Sweden

  "They were also children" short films about how elderly had it as a child as well as a visit an elderly home.

Motivation for the project from Stockholm International School

TOOLerance

Let’s use digital tools to talk about tolerance

KA2 Cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices – School Exchange Partnerships

The motivation why we wanted to participate in the project:
The theme of the project is very important to us. Since we are a truly international school with a built in diversity we have foster our students to be global citizens and we would like to hold workshops in that. We also learned from the previous project that it is in the meeting that people handle situations differently, no matter what the theme is, it is the travelling and meeting that results in friend building and in the long run peace. We also think it is important at our school to make it possible for all students, not only those who can afford a school trip to participate. We also want to continue with Erasmus+ as a window towards Europe since we have students from all around the world and this is a great way of learning.

For the first time in a project are we open up students homes for other students which will be very interesting and a big experience for our students who only speaks English and will have to be hosting other students in Sweden, making them feel Swedish. That was our experience from earlier projects where we had students from Austria, Kenya, South Korea that were referred to as Swedish. It made us realize that we are all humans and the rest is just labels depending on context.

Final post for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle

This is a final farewell to the project with 3 x R.

However, the blog remains because we were just notified of a new Erasmus + project. The Turkish school is involved also in this project. It feels extra fun because we never came to visit that school during the previous project. In view of the nice presentations that students and teachers made over their beautiful city in the northern Turkey, Anneli Thompson and I are looking forward to getting the chance to finally visit them.

That feeling is a good demonstration of that Erasmus + projects create bridges between people, friends for life and all spread in Europe and surroundings.

The common blog for the project was handled by Alexandra and can still be visited on:

http://erasmus3r.webnode.cz/

Reflection from Ms. Anneli

The Erasmus + project, Reduce, Reuse and Recycle trip to Romania started off with an unexpected adventure...one student short in the early hours of the morning. We were forced to make our flights to Berlin and on to Bucharest without Giordan. We were met in Bucharest by our excited Romanian hosts whose remark, 'No problem!'(this remark would be heard many times over the next few days by our delightful hosts) regarding our dilemma of our missing student and sorting out pick up for late that evening.

Magura, the village we would be staying in with local families from the school, was a two hour rally drive from Bucharest. We would soon learn that the rules of the road are very different in Romania and we were in for a roller coaster ride...each time! As Mrs Umerkajeff was leading the trip, Mrs Anneli made the journey back to Bucharest at midnight, with a parent who spoke no English (Thank God for body language, drama skills and football as a topic) to pick up our missing link, Giordan! Better late than never!

The next few days were filled with touring the local school that was hosting this project in Romania. Our students, Axel Zimburg, Daniel Munyao, Yoonsik Kim, Alejandro Xirau, and Giordan Yates were wholeheartedly involved in the projects set up by the Romanian team alongside students from France, Turkey, Czech Republic, Poland and Romania. Although our students were not Swedish, we were representing Sweden as a nation which was pretty unique as SIS is! The students did activities such as create costumes and bags out of recycled material, rehearsed for a play about recycling (which they later performed with students representing the other countries), graffiti painted recycled plastic containers to decorate the representing nations and their flags across the school yard. Mrs Anneli, Mrs Umerkajeff and the students also took every opportunity to hang out with the others whether playing basketball, learning Romanian terms in exchange of teaching Swedish terms with the school kids and getting to know the other teams.

Alongside work around the daily Erasmus+ project activities, all of the teams were bussed around to various locations of interest. We got to walk along a Berca Mud Volcano, (http://travelguideromania.com/berca-mud-volcanoes/), tour one of the royal palaces, Pelisor Castle (http://www.historvius.com/pelisor-castle-1758/) (which was a great insight into the royalty of Romania prior to the rise of communism), the towns of Brasov, Sinaia, and many small villages and towns we drove through to get to the bigger towns, the monastery of Chiscau which led to the Bear Cave in the Apuseni Mountains. (http://www.romanianmonasteries.org/romania/bears-cave) On our final evening, we even got to quickly walk and discover the castle in Transylvania, known as the Bran Castle or better known as the ‘Dracula castle’. (It is claimed to be one of many castles in that region that inspired Bram Stoker to write his classic novel). (http://www.bran-castle.com/dracula.html)  

Our Romanian hosts had worked hard to organise a week of activities and trips that would give us an insight into the history, the culture and the Romania of today. It was truly a privilege to be hosted by them and share these experiences with students and teachers from the other six nations.

As Mrs Umerkajeff stated in her speech to the Major of Bazau on our final morning in Romania.

‘As representatives of Sweden implementing this project of Erasmus+, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle , we have focused on the "joy of learning". Building bridges between people as something more than just an abstract metaphor. We have done this by meeting in one another’s environment over the past year through our trips to Poland, France and Sweden thus far. Being part of this project changes us forever. We must question our preconceptions about each other’s nations and cultures and we do that for sure by meeting in different places and discovering the truth for ourselves. During these days in Romania, we have encountered a beautiful country, but particularly amazingly sweet and welcoming students, staff and local families, who have embraced us with open arms. Thanks for inviting and hosting us.

La revedere! (Goodbye in Romanian)

The EU-report more to come

http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/

Polishing the report

https://twinspace.etwinning.net/1411/pages/page/239045

Two more dates before the final date when our report should be handed in. Therefore did I add some pictures at our "twinspace" blog.

Keeping the theme alive

So now our  three year project with other countries regarding reuse and environmental work has ended. Thus, not the dedication itself. The school's management has seriously taken the students' wishes to be able to sort the sources of garbage already in the classroom.

The annual day to keep our environment clean will be repeated.



Theme days continue to come as suggestions because of the theme of the project.

Teachers share their ideas about environmental thinking when planning materials for students.

http://www.hsr.se/english

Keep Sweden clean is an old organisation and they develop pedagogical activities, here is a calendar, it is in Swedish but it can still give inspiration to others.

So for this, the students click on a number and there are som tasks or experiments one can conduct. It is common in the Nordic countries to have a calendar in December as a count down for Christmas.

http://www.hsr.se/julkalender-miljomal

This organisation is supported by the governmental institution of nature

Naturvårdsverket in English:

http://www.swedishepa.se/

Survey on trash - garden suggestions

Ideas that students will develop as we continue to work with reduce, reuse, recycle.

Reflection of the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle trip to Czech Republic (26.03 - 02.04 2017)

Name: Carmen Koidumäe

Role in Project: Student

My highlight of the week:

This trip gave me the opportunity to learn about Czech Republic and how to save water from getting polluted. During this trip I also met a lot of new people from different nations: Romania, France, Spain, Poland, Czech and I made many new friends. We shared our knowledge about recycling saving the environment.

I got a new experience by living with a Czech family,  I got to know some of their daily habits and traditions. I am really grateful for the family and Natalie for taking me into their home.

My favorite part of the trip was going sightseeing in Prague because the city was so beautiful. Also I really loved when I had the opportunity to touch the stingrays at the zoo.

The program was well planned, we always had something to do. The teachers had done a great job with this trip and they always informed our parents what we were doing. My parents were really pleased with this approach.  

What could have gone better:

Well the family I was staying with did not speak any English. So it was very hard for me to communicate with them. But luckily I had a roommate from Spain who could speak English. Overall it was manageable.

Name: Zuzanna Opuchlik

Role in the project: Student

1. What were your impressions from this trip to the Czech Republic?

I generally enjoyed the trip. I got to learn more about Czech Republic and see the country. The part that I liked the most was sightseeing in Prague. I think that the city is very beautiful. I also liked the fact that we had an opportunity to meet students from other countries. By staying with Czech families we could  learn about their culture and homelife. We got to experience Czech Republic even more. There were also some downsides. One of them is that on all the trips the group of Czech students was travelling separately. We had no chance to spend time with them  during the day, when we would have a better opportunity to get to know the. Also, in my opinion, some of the activities we were doing were more suitable for younger students and weren’t really interesting for me. But overall I think the trip was a great opportunity that I wouldn’t get to experience otherwise.

2. The focus for this trip was upon the concept of water. What is your personal thoughts on water usage and has it changed since/ during this trip to Czech Republic?’

Before the trip I was well aware of the fact that we have to save water. It is the source of life for all the animals and plants on Earth. During this trip I learned new things about water from the presentations students prepared. I also realized that in some places water is very polluted and due to that animals are not able to live there. A visit to hydroelectric power plant was very interesting. We get to know how it all works and that water is able to generate big amounts of electricity. It is a great alternative source of energy that is not dangerous for our environment and as we saw from the example can be incorporated into nature so that we can’t even see it.

3. What was your most memorable part of this trip to the Czech Republic and why?

The most memorable part of the trip for me was the sightseeing in Prague. This is the first time I’ve visited Prague and I really enjoyed. The city is very beautiful. What I remember the most was walking across the Charle’s bridge on the first day. The sun was setting and we could admire the view of the river and the city.  I’m sure it will stay long in my memory.