Facing severe economic, financial and social crisis, the new European Commission has defined a strategy for growth. The number 1 priority is to ensure Europe is growing again and employment rates are increasing. This top priority and the social, economic and educational situations in the 4 participating countries, inspired us to work together and tackle the problem of early school leavers by keeping them motivated for their future and increase the opportunities for our students as well as other students in Europe to access the European job market.Localised in 4 different geographical and cultural contexts, the 4 schools have realised over the last years the fundamental benefit of European cooperation of the students, teachers and the schools themselves. The experience of working together on a specific project not only in virtual space but also meeting each other and to be in different environments and cultures in Europe has proven an essential step in creating European awareness and fostering a sense of European identity and citizenship amongst students and teachers which could not have been achieved otherwise.The fundamental objectives of this project are:1. To decrease the number of early school leavers and increase the employment rate in Europe by implementing the concept of personalised learning, both by students and teachers, in an international setting. 2) to learn and research in an innovative way, mostly outside the classroom and on locations that are relevant for the different topics during the Student Visits (‘Active Learning’). These locations are typical and relevant for the place/country each participating school is located. 3) to produce the ‘European Backpack’ and ‘Briefcase,’ for both students and teachers. How the results from the research carried out by students and teachers are created for the ‘European Backpack’ and ‘Briefcase,’ is entirely for the students and teachers to choose on the understanding that it is publicly accessible for example: a film, info graphic or a blog. Over two years 100 students and their teachers from different countries were actively involved in the project, and cooperate with their partners, virtually and during student visits, conducting comparative research and practice related to 4 topics. Furthermore, many students inside and outside the schools will be part of the project and benefit from its results. The topics have been chosen as they are linked to the EU commission’s priorities, they allow a multi-disciplinary approach and are linked to the school's curriculum. Each topic is strongly connected with one of the of the participating schools, its surroundings and its environment. The student visits in each country, will be concentrated around that topic. The 4 topics are:1. Discrimination and integration (Sweden)2. Language barriers (UK)3. Exploring New Horizons: study/ work/ training in Europe (The Netherlands)4. Coping with social and economic disadvantages (Greece) We have achieved the goals and will continue to do so of decreasing the number of early school leavers by keeping the students motivated for their future and increasing employment rates in Europe by an innovative new approach: Active Learning. The European Commission’s investment says on its website about the top priority: ‘This investment should be targeted towards education, research and innovation’. That is the centre of our approach ensuring the students and teachers own their own learning process by creating personal and specific research questions which focus directly on the theme. They will work in international teams of 4 people. This is a big step in the concept of personalised learning. (Education) We aim to challenge tradition learning styles of learning i.e. inside the classroom. Instead teachers and students will venture out to address their personal research question in different locations focusing on specific features relating to the chosen topic of each country during the student visits. (Research) This way of learning will enable students to contribute to and make a positive impact on the surrounding society and their own ideas for their future prospects. (Innovation) The project will facilitate ‘Action Learning' aiming to increase practical skills by developing independent learners and implementing the concept of personalised learning with an international group of students aged 15-18yrs and their teachers. Throughout the duration of the project students and teachers have created products such as blogs, films and digital posters which contain the results of their research. All of which will be contained within a 'European Backpack’ for students and a ‘European Briefcase’ for teachers. This is a digitalised portfolio which young people and teachers from all over Europe can access from anywhere and share. It can be downloaded via a website which we have produced ourselves during the project.

Localized in 3 different geographical and cultural contexts, 3 schools (from the Netherlands, Portugal, Bulgaria), have realized over the last decade the fundamental benefit of European cooperation for their students, teachers and the schools as such.The experience of working together on a specific project, not only in virtual space but also actually meeting each other, has proven an essential step in creating European awareness and fostering a sense of European identity and citizenship among students and teachers which could not have been achieved otherwise.Aware of the fundamental need to continue to provide this opportunity to a significant number of our students, the 3 schools feel the need to exchange, experiment and document innovative pedagogical practices in the context of multicultural learning.The fundamental objectives of our project is to implement the concept of personalized learning with an international group of upper secondary students and to create OERs. Over 2 years, 40 students and their teachers from each school will cooperate with their partners, virtually and during project meetings, conducting comparative research related to the themes of the project: 'food' for the students and 'personalized learning' for the teachers. The theme of food has been chosen as it it is linked to the Millennium Development Goals of the EU, it permits a multidisciplinary approach (relating the research to the local curriculum), permitting par excellence the study of European and global interrelatedness and also because, valorising cultural identity and diversity in Europe, it is a motivating theme for the students. Each year, a project visits in the three schools will bring together students and teachers from all participating schools for a week of intensive work. Before these project meetings, teachers are introduced to the concept of personalized learning and prepare the project activities in each school. Students and their families are selected and prepared intensively.Project activities during the project visits comprise lessons related to the theme (ex: Science, Economy, Geography, Language, History, Arts), study visits (ex: greenhouses, farms, plant-production firm, fishing harbour, large supermarket, regional food distribution centre/market, museum…), contact with persons related to food production / distribution. All of these activities follow the concept of personalized learning and will contribute to the comparative research of the students and help them to answer the research questions they will define together, in the beginning.This research results in OERs created by the students and by the teachers, which will be publicly accessible.A further result will be the diaries written by the students which will help the teachers to assess the progress and success of the strategy adopted (personalized learning) and to evaluate, document and share their experience with the use of this concept in an international group.The main impact expected on the participating students is the acquisition of research and communication skills in an international group and a significant rising of their European awareness. Moreover, they learn that they can actively intervene in issues of public interest (like what we eat), thus making an experience of intervenient European citizenship. The impact is increased through the recognition/validation of the learning outcomes through Europass.Other students in all 3 schools will profit from this experience as the participants will share it, in formal and informal settings, motivating and encouraging their colleagues.The teachers who participate in the project meetings will learn how the concept of personalized learning works and how they can guide students in this type of learning; they will also learn to develop OERs, both by themselves and their students. We expect this experience to have strong impact on their own normal lessons and, through sharing with the colleagues of their departments, also on a larger group of teachers in each school.For the schools as such, the most valuable impact of the project consists in bringing the European dimension to the school and the school community in a constructive and positive sense at a moment when large parts of the population have become disinterested in the EU.The project’s potential longer term benefit consists, therefore, in the formation of active young citizens with a European awareness. The experience of applying personalized learning to European student exchanges and its evaluation will be of long-term benefit to the three schools. Sharing our experience with others in our region and with other European schools to whom each school is related, we hope to encourage a wider use of this innovative approach.

"Climate change is and will be the most serious problem in the whole world. Most countries have already experienced disastrous effects of global warming, such as extreme weather, extreme heat, floods, droughts, forest fires, rising sea level. UN has a Development Programme with 17 sustainable development goals and goal number 13 is Climate action. Goals 14 - Life below water and 15 - Life on land, are also connected with fighting climate changes. There are other documents, like Kyoto Protocol, Paris Agreement, Europe 2020 Strategy, in which countries are urged to mitigate the effects of climate change. World Health Organization also warns about negative effects of limate change on human health. The project entitled ""Stop Climate Change - Together Europe Achieves More"" was implemented by six partner schools from diferent parts of Europe: Croatia, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland. This project stems from the climate change experiences of all participating schools and recognizing the common problem. The main objective was to expand their knowledge and exchange good practices in this field to achieve greater competences needed in daily life in the 21st century. Project objectives were: - to show pupils different approaches to mitigating climate changes and raise the level of climate literacy - to improve awareness about climate changes from all aspects and angles not only for students but also for families and local communities - to encourage pupils and parents to engage in energy-saving activities - to connect the curricula of different subjects by implementing project and involving all teachers, to develop an interdisciplinary knowledge - all students will realize the importance of belonging to the EU by participating in this project and by cooperating with different nations - to increase openness of pupils to other cultures, enable pupils to make formal and informal contact with foreigners - to increase competence in the use of English language and ICT and (digital competences) for pupils and teachers - to increase recognition of schools in the local environment - to disseminate and exploit the results, ensuring future generations have access to simple, science based toolkits which support their learning - to strengthen teachers' skills through transnational cooperation and by adopting new, innovative and effective methods of teaching Partner schools have 3820 pupils and 378 teachers. They all took part in project activities and benefited from them. Pupils aged 5-18 took part in activities, pupils aged 13-16 went to mobilities. All teachers are well trained and experienced. Four schools have taken part in Erasmus+ projects and two schools were inexperienced in Erasmus+ projects. In the framework of the project we carried out : 4 short-term exchanges of groups of pupils, measuring the weather, studying global warming and greenhouse effect, introducing measures to reduce CO2 emmisions, taking measures to reduce carbon footprint, studying endengered plants and animals, invasive plants and animals, learning about renewable sources of energy, production of a functioning water mill, solar powered car, wind turbine, game creation, learning about 1st aid and rescuing disaster victims, rehearsed and performed 4 climate based school plays, conducted 24 climate based lessons. In our project we used the following methodology and pedagogical approach: Content and language integrated learning, project based learning, learning through experience, experimentation, mathematical processing of results from research, videoconferences, educational games, stimulating creativity through educational trips, visits and excursions to several different institutions.We achieved the following results during the project: 6 presentations about participating countries and schools, 60 presentations related to climate changes ( waste management, RRR, water consumption, weather measurements, endangered species, invasive species, renewable sources of energy, climate change and human health, ), project logo, web pages, 6 watermills, 6 solar powered cars, 6 wind turbines, 2 e-books, exhibitions, 6 games, 4 school play performances, bookmarks with climate slogans.Long term impacts are: the increased interests of students in science, in environment and mitigation of climate changes, the increased tolerance to social and cultural differences, the increased willingness of teachers to take on new challenges and projects, the increased openness of the teachers to educational cooperation, perception of the teaching staff as active and involved in lives of local people, the use of effective solutions to reduce socio- economic differences between disadvantaged students, improved educational offer of the schools, the increased experience in implementation of EU projects, the opportunity to use examples of good practices by other organizations. We cancelled 2 LTTAs and 2020 Erasmus Days due to Covid-19."