ΡΑΛΛΕΙΟ ΓΕΝΙΚΟ ΛΥΚΕΙΟ ΘΗΛΕΩΝ ΠΕΙΡΑΙΑ - 12-3-2021 Evaluation of European Project Erasmus+KA2 ROOTS, Routes to Outdoor Oriented Teaching and Sustainability (2017-2020)

Ralleio Coordinator: Katerina Christodoulou, English Language Teacher Ralleio

Pedagogical Team: Sarantos Oikonomidis (Director, Physicist),Stavros Drosakis (Mathematician), Bia Kaneletopoulou (Greek Language, History and Literature Teacher), Anastasia Keskesiadou (Greek Language, History and Literature Teacher), Kalliope Bechraki (Greek Language, History and Literature Teacher), Nikos Panagiotopoulos (Sociologist), Maria Panagiotopoulou (Greek Language, History and Literature Teacher) and Dimitris Christopoulos (Greek Language, History and Literature Teacher).

ROOTS aimed to promote healthy lifestyle and increased environmental awareness among young people in the five schools of the partnership in Iceland, Greece, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. The main objectives were to interlace health promotion in schools with curricular contents, specifically regarding natural sciences and cultural heritage by designing intellectual activities in the field to promote acquisition of knowledge and skills and to ignite recognition of the importance of one’s environment, its conservation and its value.

Routes serving in the past as connections between places were used to connect us to our roots, experience nature, research human impact on environment and practice outdoor physical and educational activities based on specially designed Study Kits. Excursions along these routes set the stage for the main priorities: acquisition of skills and social inclusion. Each partner school chose routes locally and teachers prepared study kits to guide the learning activities on each excursion, related to each region. Local students explored the routes in order to guide the multinational learning activities, during which the routes were tracked with a GPS application (Wikiloc on mobile phones), and students worked in groups on the tasks of the Study Kits. The products were made public and may serve as a guide for other study groups wishing to follow the same routes. All Training and Learning activities were carried out successfully and according to schedule. Due to COVID19 lockdown in spring and early summer 2020, Learning Activity C6 and Transnational meeting 3 scheduled for March 2020 in Spain were cancelled, as was the Final Transnational meeting scheduled for June 2020 in Greece. Cooperation between partner schools in preparing and carrying out all international meetings and activities was impeccable.

Regarding Learning Activity C2, at Ralleio in April 2018, 40 students and 10 teachers participated by creating 10 study kits in different subjects (Languages, Mathematics, Philosophy, History, Civics, Economics, Sustainability and Cultural Heritage), which were edited, streamlined and translated in English by Ralleio Coordinator, who also designed the baseline and post activity surveys for C2 Learning Activity. Students were able to communicate, have a deeper understanding of their environment and enhance their cultural capital as well as experience nature, thus becoming more competent at making informed decisions regarding health and sustainability. Teachers shared experience leading to the acquisition of innovative approaches to teaching and planning school activities, as well as increased collaboration and communication. C2 baseline and post activity surveys conducted confirmed the acquisition of the objectives. We are proud that 6 of the Greek routes were selected by Wikiloc and feature on Google Earth Pro. https://rb.gy/ey6y2u

At Ralleio, during the three years of the program, the themes of sustainability, cultural heritage and health promotion were included in 3 different B class Projects and 3 Environmental and 2 Cultural Programs.ROOTS team was also responsible for the awareness activities and the management of the school’s Recycling Station. https://rb.gy/wkhsqk

All program activities were listed in Ralleio Coordinator’s application for Sustainable School Label, awarded to the school in 2019. https://rb.gy/xt1g2z. Also, ROOTS International Coordinator applied for 2018 European Year of Cultural Heritage Label, which was awarded to the program. https://www.facebook.com/erasmusROOTS 2/5/2018

As for online dissemination, reports on all activities were published (Greek and English) on Ralleio webpage http://lyk-ralleion.att.sch.gr/index.php/gr/ , on Ralleio Facebook account https://www.facebook.com/ralleios , on ROOTS webpage http://erasmus.roots.hersby.net/ and on ROOTS Facebook account https://www.facebook.com/erasmusROOTS. There were also dissemination activities at local, regional, national and international level: Erasmus+KA2 meeting organized by the Directorate of Secondary Education of Pireas, https://rb.gy/4pgtct, the seminar organized by the Coordinator for Piraeus EFL teachers, https://rb.gy/xh8hyz, the Ministry of Education through the successful application for Ralleio to participate in Joint UNESCO-EU Workshop “Integrating Ιntangible Cultural Heritage in School-based Education” (applying with activities implemented in ROOTS) and at the Pilot Workshop (Vienna, October 2019). https://rb.gy/fnmfkg

The project impact on the involved Ralleio teachers consisted in new experience and insight of outdoor pedagogical methodologies, developing and testing new and innovative material and tools and sharing good practices with foreign colleagues. ROOTS interdisciplinary nature enhanced communication and cooperation between teachers of different subjects and their appreciation of holistic approach to education. Students were exposed to problem-solving based learning where physical exercise, healthy nutrition and outdoor techniques were intertwined with practicing school subjects in the field. The baseline and post-activity evaluation surveys show the impact as to the acquisition of knowledge and positive increase of the involved students' environmental awareness and appreciation of natural environment. Overall cooperation between partner schools was seamless, productive, creative and deeply satisfying resulting not only in personal friendships but also in a new project (2020-1-SI01-KA229-07596) https://rb.gy/wmrpvb.

According to the evaluation report of the whole project received by the coordinating school form the Icelandic National Agency: “This is a very well thought out project, innovative and ambitious and well organized in every detail. It is clear that the project has had a great influence on both students and teachers involved and will give them an added and new view of nature and sustainability, which they will all combine in their teaching/learning. The partnership was strong and each partner contributed with own experience to the shared tasks. The communication and cooperation were good. Due to COVID 19, three meetings had to be cancelled. The report shows that some of it was prepared before the planned meeting and the partners have succeeded in finishing the project digitally. The methodology of the project was innovative and based on activities in the field combined with subjects for the classroom. It seems to have been an excellent experience and all participants seem to have learnt a great deal and changed their attitude to outdoor living and environmental issues. The study kits kept on the homepage are extraordinarily well planned tasks containing clear instructions on tasks combining school-based subjects within the field studies”