3RD MEETING 5 – 11 NOVEMBER, 2011 - GRAZ, AUSTRIA

REPORT: COORDINATOR SCHOOL

 EUROPEAN   PROJECT   COMENIUS

“WATER: AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE IN THE LIFE OF EUROPEAN CITIZENS”

THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

5 – 11 NOVEMBER, 2011  -  GRAZ, AUSTRIA 

 Participating schools,countries and coordinators:

-HS/RS Heiligenkreuz am Waasen, Graz, Austria.(AT)   Brigitte Slavec 

-2 Epal Kavalas, Kavala,Greece. (GR)  Aggeliki Karanasiou

-Ist.Second.di Primo Grad“Piero Calamandrei”,Torino,Italy.(IT) Elena Zanon

-IES Las Huesas, Telde - Gran Canaria, Spain.(SP)   Leonor González

Teachers and others participants: (Greek teachers)Totis Sotiris and Stefanos Nalmpantis, (Italian teacher) Silvia Barbero, (Spanish teachers) Isabel Valpuesta and María J. Suárez.

Students: 6 from 2 Epal Kavalas, 3 from IES Las Huesas, 7 from IS P. G. Piero Calamandrei and all Austrian students, teachers, staff and host families.

The visited school: HS / RS Heiligenkreuz am Waasen, Graz, Austria.

            Teams from all the partner institutions in this project, coordinators, several teachers and students  arrived at Graz-Thalerhof Airport from Spain and Italy and by train from Wien Greek collegues,  between 5^th and 6^th of November  and left Austria after a successful meeting at the end of the week, (Friday and Saturday).     

As time young students from Spain and Italy participated in the meeting, they were picked up by their hostess families at the airport. The teachers were taken to the hotel Feichtinger whereas the Greek teachers and their adult students stayed together in other hotel.

The Austrian institution planned and organized the meeting so, before the meeting, the hostess school worked out and sent to the partners a provisional and final Planning; its the coordinator did a great job and sent useful  information and  she prepared as well all about logistics: accomodation, meals, activities with teachers, students, families, etc. Before the meeting too, the coordinating school asked  the participating students to prepare a presentation with their work/activities they had done for the project in the last school year, so each country prepared a ppt in English which is the language of communication.

In the evening, on Saturday, the Spanish teachers visited the “School Ball”. It was a very important celebration because it was the anniversary as HS/RS of our host school. The next day, on Sunday, the team of Gran Canaria with the Austrian Coordinator, had a walk on the Schloßberg, in which she showed them a lot of interesting places, then they had lunch at “Häuserl im Wald” with typical food of Styria. In the evening they had the opportunity to visit the city centre.

On Monday the 7^th of November at 07:15 there was the meeting at the reception and all teachers went to Heiligenkreuz by car. We had a walk around the school with our Comenius Partners. We met the headmistress, teachers and students; after that there was the official opening at school in Heiligenkreuz am Waasen. A power point was shown – all the countries were mentioned and also some work that has been done during the project and everyone was gathered in order to present to the whole school the partners and to exchange presents. Austrian students welcomed us with music, songs and dances.

In the first work session at a beautiful classroom decorated with European atmosphere, posters, photos, drawings, etc. showing the topic of our project “water” or about the four participant countries, we started work with all the teachers and participant students distributed by countries. Italy, Greece and Spain showed a powerpoint of their work that has been done, it was a lovely activity because the students were the speakers. Then we all did the glossary, we practised it in different ways, specially the Greek students taught all other students the pronunciation of the “water words” because they were the most difficult ones: German, Spanish, French, Italian and English languages were practised with these water words too. Students showed their diaries and exchanged ideas.

Then the Comenius teachers team with the Principal and Greek students had a meeting with the Major in the Town Hall of Heiligenkreuz. We visited also the local church guided by the priest and we had a walk around the town. After that,  we all had lunch together, we were invited by the Mayor, and we could watch a power point about the countryside and the infrastructure of the region. It was in Kotschler  (local restaturant).In the evening  we did some sightseeing in Graz and met for dinner in Glöckl-Bräu, nice and typical restaurant which was an old beer factory.

On Tuesday, November 8^th, we had a visit to the south-east of Styria. On a private bus we visited first the chocolate factory of Zotter, a fair-trade factory and then we moved to visit and we had a walk on the Riegersburg, we went up to the private Rigegersburg Castle, not open in this period and after that we enjoyed  our lunch with typical Styrian food. In the afternoon, we took part in a “Wein Duftikum”, where we could watch the countryside, the history of this region and also tasted and smelled wine, produced in the volcanic land, coming back to Graz late in the evening. Our students were at school and taught each other the pronunciation of the glossary and also worked on the students’ questionnaires.

          The next day, Wednesday, Greek students left early in the morning and teachers were picked up at 7:15 and brought to Heiligenkreuz by car and it started a new work session with the students. The last ppt presentations were shown by themselves, then, while students attended some lessons, the Comenius teachers team worked in the project. At first we talked about the assessment because last year some of us made a questionnaire to the students in order to know about their evaluation of the project and their suggestions for this school year. Now, however, the students participanting in this meeting have got a questionnaire made by themselves and now they have to work on it in their own schools when they came back,  so they can get the general opinion and discuss about the questions that most of students would like to answer, thank to this questionnaire, they can also know the answers have hadothers schools so in the next meeting, this will be a special task for students who  will participate in the fourth meeting, as they will have to finish the common final questionnaire for students. In the final meeting, they will use it showing the graphics about the answers in order to compare and discuss if they can find  big differences between schools they will analize the reasons why, which would be a kind of students` assessment.

On the other hand, the coordinator school has elaborated a provisional questionnaire about these two years in the project, in order to get the assessment from teachers, staff, etc. Now, when we come back to our schools, we must decide which questions to keep and which ones must be taken away the questionnaire and add other questions that our teams gave us, and then in Turin, the final common questionnaire will be elaborated. Then, in May in the Canary Island, we will bring answers and graphics.

We spoke about the products to upload on the EST. We agreed that in the end, the final products will be the following and all of them must include a short description in English which must be ready for the next meeting in Italy so we only have to revise them and decide when and who will upload the materials:

   

Ø      Water mill. In each school we can prepare some pictures of models, or made a ppt or video with the process or any material that show the object. At the end, when the four schools have done this, we will create a folder called “our water mills” the four works will be there ready to be uploaded on EST.

Ø      Song related to the water. Each school has to do one. Some schools have already done it, the others are working on it but all songs have to be with English subtitles and again the same process to upload it, (ppt, video,etc. and description)and then it has to be saved  in a folder called “our water songs”.

Ø      Participants and presentations. This work is done. We only have to create the folder with the four presentations (Greek have to change 1 Epal by 2 Epal) and the ppt about participants, that was showed on the wall in Gran Canaria and in the official opening in Austria.

Ø      Four-six best Sutudents’ Diaries. We discussed about this folder and we decided that in Turin, each school will bring between 4 and 6 examples chosen in each school  as a competition in each country and we will choose the most representative  ones from each to be uploaded on the EST website. The Greek students already made a book with all their work from the previous year and because they are adults, they’ll bring this as a diary.

Ø      Glossary. We will upload an example, but as Italian students showed how to do a glossary animation , because they did it at school, we decided that  each school will have to do it  the same way for the next meeting.

Ø      We haven’t decided about Rain gauge, how and what we are going to upload to EST, we must discuss it in our next meeting because those schools which haven’t done it yet must complete it for the next meeting in Italy. We talk about the graphics and other ideas.

We haven’t decided yet about what activities from this school year as Christmas. Works, pen friends, connection in Water’s Day, questionnaires, showing how every subject has worked on the project, etc are going to be uploaded in EST.

After our work session, we went with the participant students to the river and did experiments on the water: PH, pollution, etc. Then, they went back to their host families and teachers had a lovely lunch at the school canteen. Then, we had a visit to the “Murkraftwerke Graz”, where we got to know about a hydroelectric water power station. It is beeing built just right now and will produce electricity in a few months. An  expert explained the work they did and what they are going to do thank to the river Mur. In the evening, we were invited by Anneliese and spent an evening with her in Prosdorf.

On Thursday, November 10^th, meeting at reception at 07:15 we visited the primary school all together, teachers and students. The headmaster welcomed us and Austrian students spoke with children about our project. Then, coming back to HS/RS, we were divided in groups, and Greek, Italian and Spanish teachers could attend some lessons and we spoke about our schools, countries, etc. to Austrian students.

Later, while our students watched a film about problems with water in South America and advices to save water and they worked about this with some teachers, there was again some working session at school with the Comenius teachers team and we decided the activities from now untill our next meeting in Torino and we clarified our problems with pen friends task, we talked about the web sites and blog, and we fixed the date for the final meeting in Gran Canaria, next May, 7^th – 11^th. It is important to remember that  our common Logo, created by Spanish school as the logo for our project, must be shown at the top of the documents related to the project.

With regard to our webs, because some of us have problems with our school web site,  in our meeting in Greece we had decided to upload the ppt, materials, presentations etc to a Blog that was created by Greek team. Now, we decided that the coordinator school, (Nory) is going to prepare some DVDs with the materials from all partners, the four presentations, the ppt with the work done in each school last year, the Glossary, etc. Then all DVDs will be sent by post to Greece, so they can upload everything in the blog and just put the web address of the blog in each school web site, so we have to prepare part of our work to EST. Responsable school for the blog is the Greek team. On other hand, the main problem with pen friend activity was with Greek students because the same mail addresses were sent to the rest of partners. Now we know more about this and we hope to improve this activity that must be compulsory for our students Comenius team.

Current and future activities for our fourth transnational meeting.

1)      Activities to be done for Christmas: Christmas cards related to water and to take pictures of the making process  so we can have a final product. Some ideas were to exchange Xmas. Cards between pen friends , to create virtual Xmas. Cards with the help clip arts or similars, school exhibitions    to show them, posters etc. Each school is free to prepare this activity.

2)     Pen friends communication.  It has to be improved.

3)     Questionnaire for the students, they are working on them. It’s about their jobs. Students must write some questions in order to decide ( in Turin ) the final questionnaire. After that in May, students will bring the answers to the questions that they collect from students.

4)     Student diaries. Competition in each school and (the 4/6 best ones have to be chosen).

5)     Questionnaire of the project. It’s about the project. Teachers must decide which questions to keep and which to take away from the provisional questionnaire   and in Turin, the final questionnaire will be elaborated. Then, in May, in the Canary Island we will bring answers and graphics.

6)     Connection for Water’s Day. Skype connection or something similar. We’ll have a conference, during the water day celebration (on the 21^st or 22^nd of March), with all the schools. Silvia Barbero and Reinhard Kersh are in charge of it. They have to send us the instructions, which steps we must follow in order to check if it works properly. We are trying to have a conference, with all other schools to show them how we are celebrating it. The idea is that the Italian team opens the connection by presenting (all the other school), each school does an activity or show a ppt, and the Italian School (hosting school) will finish the connection. It will take around 1 hour so now each school must think  in one activity that will be 10 minutes more or less (drama, game, song, ...) and all teachers and students in the four schools are going to be connected that day.

7)     Glossary animation . (Animated gif) Students have to teach the other students in their school the pronunciation that they have learnt in Austria, at the same time, they make the animation. The students who are going to Torino, can show the work done.

8)     All subjects’ work concerning water. For the next meeting each school must produce a ppt in which they can show how every subject has worked on the project.

9)     Rain gauge .To work on a rain gauge, we must get a pluviometer in each school (Greece has done) it related to each local area. The pluviometer will be ready for the Water Day Celebration, during the fourth meeting in Italy, March 2012. We could know how Greek team did it and how the Austrian one is working and we are  comparing the rainfall in each country in our next meeting, students will explain how much water there was in their area and they can compare results.

After our work in the Comenius session, we had lunch in the school canteen and had a few hours free in the afternoon before the farewell dinner all together.  In the evening there was the official farewell at Lipizzaner Franzl in Heiligenkreuz am Waasen.  We spent an unforgettable time together with the headmistress teachers, students, guests and the hostess families.

The last day,  Friday 11^th , the Greek team left at about 11 am. The other teams worked together at school in the morning. It was the last working session with students and teachers. Students were divided in three groups: they worked on the glossary (animated gif), they worked on the questionnaire and the other group worked on the pluviometer, there was one teacher responsible for each group while the rest of teachers exchanged photos, materials and activities.

Students also had to do a feedback of the week, which was very successful. All of them were very happy to have the opportunity of taking part in this project. Our guest  were happy about their visit in Austria. They liked the country very much and they also liked their hostess families.  Austrian students were happy, too. What they all liked best was going to the spa together. But they also want to go on working on the project.

Teachers had a final snack together. Parents brought students to the airport.

In the evening the Italian team left from the airport in Graz –Thalerhof. Saturday, November 12^th, the team of Gran Canaria left Graz very, very early in the morning. The Austrian Coordinator Brigitte Slavec was in the departure, she did a great job with all her Austrian team.