Children, especially preschoolers, can record things into their long-term memory in learning environments which stimulate all the senses. Nowadays kids spend more time playing on gadgets than they do being physically active outside. Since they have less and less direct experiences in nature, these kids will miss out crucial opportunities to enhance their overall well-being, health and relationships. Many children today don’t have a lot of direct or indirect contact with and access to the natural world. Direct experience with nature during childhood is of great importance to influence the children's relationship with nature as a child now, but later as an adult. Sensory experiences will develop understanding and enrich child’s appreciation of the great outdoors. Playing in nature children develop a sense of wonder and curiosity about elements of nature (e.g. weather, flora and fauna, sand, water), and become inspired and motivated to explore, discover, inquire, critically think, and reflect about the real world.Considering these benefits 6 partner countries -Latvia, Turkey, Romania, Portugal, Bulgaria and Italy have come together to create the project: Little Nature Lovers. Project aim: Increase teachers' knowledge and skills to use contemporary teaching approaches to connect children with nature and improving children's knowledge of natural objects in the local area.Nearly 850 children aged between 3-7 and 100 teachers and educators will participate in this precious project.We will focus on the following objectives:-To enable teachers to acquire knowledge and competence to use nature as a learning environment via engaging children in outdoor nature activities;-To provide teachers with competence in nature based interdisciplinary lessons;-To inculcate teachers with new ideas and methods to guide special needs kids in nature activities;- to promote the formation of the child's ecological awareness and attitude focusing on trees, plants, birds and small animals; -To develop children’s creative and cognitive skills in Maths, Science and Art in nature;-To enable teachers to work in a mutual exchange with other kindergartens’ teachers to gain new ideas, insights, and methods across Europe.Our project will have 6 joint staff training with 6 different themes in which the participants will be provided with competence in order to conduct project activities more effectively. Methodical collections for preschool teachers (6 collections joined in one Little Nature Lovers’ Activity Pack) will be created (digital and 6 journals)Throughout 2 years period, we plan to create the following outputs and products with the collaboration of our partners: Project Roll-up, Project web page, eTwinning project, Little Nature Lovers’ Activity Pack, Teachers’ Guide for Nature Activities, Recipe Book, Picture Dictionary for kids.During the project the partner schools will learn from each other, project activities will become an integral part of the daily learning process. This project is also closely linked to preschool educational programs and curriculum of each participating country.Our project will contribute to the development of the involved schools in the long-term. For instance: the staff will have a raised awareness of recent changes in Nature education which will raise the quality at our respective schools;Nature-based project activities will nurture children's mental, academic and emotional development while bringing a sense of fun and adventure to kids. School community will be more conscious about the benefits of children’s connection to nature and outdoor learning. School and local community will feel themselves as part of the European Community. The implementation of the project will foster positive attitude about nature, promote school development and improve the quality of early childhood education and care in each partner school.

In the line of major changes in the general educational system in Europe teachers as well as pedagogical helpers need new concepts and practical guidelines to work with inclusive classes and courses. By using animal assisted education, students with special needs can design their school career individually and more effectively in Europe. Animal assisted education can lead to better concentration, a goal oriented way to deal with aggressions, better reading abilities, a positive influence on self-perception. Researching didactic and methodical basics of animal assisted education in secondary schools in Europe is meant to improve the quality and efficiency of general european education, minimize social differences, and strengthen social solidarity in Europe. A european manual for animal assisted education in classes and a documentary film with some impressions of our work are the main results of the two year project work. During the project different educational and methodological approaches were tested at Gesamtschule Eifel in Blankenheim (Germany), Neue Mittelschule Markt Allhau (Austria) and Instituto Comprensivo Alfonso gatto in Battipaglia/Salerno (Italy) under scientific monitoring by Prof. Harald Mandle and his team from Pädagogische Hochschule Burgenland. The results of this project are collected in a manual of animal assisted education (see upload of documentation).The manual can be downloaded from TWINSPACE (tttps://twinspace.etwinning.net/9450/home). It’s available as well from the homepage of Gesamtschule Eifel (https://gesamtschule-eifel.de/internationals/Erasmus.) A printed version is available from the office of Gesamtschule Eifel (Finkenberg 8,53945 Blankenheim).The core of the manual is a collection of short projects about animal assisted education and their evaluations. The projects were realized in secondary schools with the help of the dogs Saga, Bilbo, Bluena and some rabbits and horses. In addition to the projects you can find an overview of the projects, newsletters and abstracts of the meetings held in Blankenheim, Salerno and Markt Allhau. Excerpts of the bachelor thesis by Austrian student Saskia Taborsky are also included.Supervised by the NMS Markt Allhau a film trailer and a short film with impressions of the projects were produced (see upload of documentation). Both can be downloaded from the homepage of Gesamtschule Eifel (http://gesamtschule-eifel.de/internationales/erasmus), from TWINSPACE (https://twinspace.etwinning.net/9450/home)

"Premise: This project is aimed at students aged between 9 and 13 who live in situations of disadvantage and aims to build a path that can support students with particular fragility, enhancing the contribution of creativity and the active participation of the students, in optics to transform the school into an original laboratory of inclusive culture, which can open up to different territories to build educating communities, engaged in the search for an authentic experience of dialogue and educational cooperation. To do this we decided to use food and gastronomic traditions as a common thread. The food understood as knowledge of its history and traditions but also as knowledge of the stories and traditions of other countries, to find in diversity the similarities that there are among the peoples and that eventually unite us. Food as a universal and primary right. The banquets that have always sealed a peace, a friendship, a good togetherness and that are an example of brotherhood. The food so well represented in art from 1600 to Warhol. Food also as eco-sustainability and respect for ourselves and our planet. Recipes for discovering algorithms and computational thinking but also for talking about the Convention on the Rights of Children, which are the 30th anniversary of this year's signature, especially talking about: Right to Equality; Right to respect for one's own identity; Right to health; Right to study; Right to play and express one's creativity; Carrying out the planned activities will lead us to talk about the sustainable development objectives of the Agenda 2030 and to work on several of the 17 points. The idea of ​​our project comes from the eTwinning project: ""Look! I love cook"" (id 173213). We have had contacts with various partners and the choice fell on those who face similar problems and seek different and effective solutions to the problems of students in disadvantaged situations. With the school of Agios Nikolaos we worked on this project and we noticed the positive response that the pupils gave to the planned activities and how these were a good opportunity to raise awareness of other cultures and overcome barriers and distrust. This project has given us the opportunity to talk about the differences and the fear that an unknown thing or culture can provoke and the importance of knowing to overcome diffidence and spread a culture of acceptance and equality. Main objectives: Countering the phenomenon of early school leaving; Supporting pupils in acquiring and developing basic skills and key European skills; Promote the culture of inclusion Specific objectives: Development of skills in the field of active and democratic citizenship and of the sense of belonging and citizenship, not only national but also and above all European, through the enhancement of intercultural education, respect for differences and dialogue between cultures, the support of assumption of responsibility, as well as solidarity and care for common goods and awareness of rights and duties. The aim of the project is to help grow individuals who feel part of the society they live in and who perceive themselves as key individuals for the growth and development of our society. Number of participants: The project involves 30 students ""Ambassadors"" who are those who will participate in international exchanges but developing the project also on eTwinning the pupils involved overall, in addition to the ""ambassadors"" will be about 200. They will be students who present disadvantage (economic, linguistic, cultural) or at risk of early school leaving, capable of autonomy and collaboration and that would have no other opportunities than those provided to them by the school. Description of activities Through the development of this project there will be various activities in collaboration and sharing, including: Realization of a ""Multilingual Dictionary of Survival to the Erasmus Project""; creation of works related to food with the technique of pixel art; creation of a cookbook with recipes from the participating countries; opening a blog and a facebook page of the project; video conferencing; presence activities during exchanges aimed at encouraging socialization among pupils and understanding of other cultures. Description of the expected results Among the concrete results that we want to achieve there are the contrast to the scholastic dispersion, involving both the pupils and their families who live in disadvantaged situations and who would not have other opportunities for exchange and knowledge; the improvement of skills in schools and an increase in digital citizenship skills."

"""The house of the rebirth of memory"" was designed to encourage the dissemination of history among children and the study of it through the search for sources (documents, videos, objects). The approach envisaged stimulating inter generational dialogue on relatively recent historical events, through the recovery of experiences and objects related to the more personal sphere (photos, testimonies, etc.). making the hidden family heritage coming out, otherwise destined for dispersion and oblivion over the years.An experience of ""Citizenship"" and local ""Community"" which would then be confronted with communities of different nations, united by the desire for peace and the hope that the sharing of common experiences would support mutual well-being. The value of ""memory"" and ""remembrance"" in response to the need to identify virtuous directions at times when accidental events induce feelings of distancing and dispersion of the European experience.The project, in fact, has focused on the parallelism between the most famous Normandy landing and the Avalanche operation, which took place on 9 September 1943, and which is the most important aeronautical military operation in history, in terms of number of men and means, ever carried out in the Mediterranean.Project has been realized by the Comprehensive Institute ""A. Gatto"" of Battipaglia (Italy) and the Denis DIDEROT school, located in Tourlaville, 237 rue Augustin le Maresquier and directed by Guy Bertrand. Both institutes had already approached similar issues and the project was the venue for mutual feedback and for sharing methodologies and technologies.The project has included meetings with historians with comments on the vision of sources, the collection and listening to testimonies as well as visiting places representative of the events.During its evolution, project has increased the use of digital technologies more than expectations. In fact the confluence of all produced materials in a digital archive was already planned, collected for the free consultation thanks the xDams platform (www.xdams.org). It have been made available the memory and testimony of events. Further, thanks the collaboration of local associations and companies, we have realized an innovative, complete, cloud infrastructure that, adding new components, manages the entire chain, from collection to publication. A new platform ""A memoria!"" has been made available to the organization, a simplified way to collect heritage, a tool adequate to the capability of younger pupils. xDams OS has integrated digital contents, in compliance with international standard used for management of the cultural heritage. Finally all information has been published on a dedicated website, www .avalancheday.org, in which editorial contents has been added to the testimonies collected by the children. A point of excellence has been the publication of data in Open Data format, in particular in its most advanced format: the Linked Open Data, an initiative of international relevance.Project has also provided for the re-enactment of the landing and the clashes in battle with historical groups in uniform and original military means.Thanks this intensive use of technology, the project has well managed the limitations imposed by the lock down determined by covid19. The face-to-face meetings have turned into online events while the work of the children, already based on cloud applications use, has not been interrupted, on the contrary, it has been the opportunity to accelerate the technological literacy of children. The study of the bases of Internet connectivity has been supported by the creation of an e-Book (translation of en existing eBook). It will be a result of the project that will go beyond the project itself and will remain available to the activity of the training community (in Italian and English).The covid emergency has made more evident the importance of one of the project requirements: the saving of testimonies and objects related to the family sphere (photos, stories, etc.). There is a need to bring out the hidden family heritage, otherwise destined to be dispersed and oblivious over the years. The covid has made the obsolescence process even more rapid and irremediable, while the children have shown that there is the possibility of collecting, organizing and enhancing the memory of the older generations. These generations are therefore more fragile and subject to the risk of dispersion, both naturally, for the time flow, both due to dramatic events such as the onset of epidemics, such as the covid19, or big drama as the second world war.The project was organically included in the initiatives of the respective local communities"

"""Erasmus+: Health Action Promoting the Physical, Emotional, Nutritional and Social"" (from now on Erasmus+:HAPPENS) was a project that was created with the intention of changing the view of different researchs and studies which state concepts like Early School Leaving (ESL fro now on) and Disadvantage (such as socio-economic, linguistic / learning challenges, poor health and mental issues) are noted in Primary School and affecting from that moment on. Many programmes designed to improve ESL were reactionary and deal the problem too late in the school career. Different investigations lead to the concept that one out of four people will undergo a mental / emotional health problem during their life.Following those and other analysis the objective of Erasmus+:HAPPENS project was to modifying these studies providing teachers, students and their families with tools in order to make them able to face possible mental, physical or nutritional issues, helping them secure a safe and valuable lifestyle. Our will was and will continue being to spread a new healthy attitude and style, a strong mind in a healthy body, not just to teachers and students, but to the local community and regional social services, making the target participants the bigger the better. We were six different partners in this project: Escola Martinet, the coordinator partner (Cornellà de Llobregat – Spain), St Nicholas NS (Galway – Ireland), Ysgol Gumraeg Bro Eirwg (Cardiff – UK), Istituto Comprensivo Alfonso Gatto (Salerno-Italy), Zespol Szkolno-Gimnazjalny nr.2 (Radomsko – Poland) and 11th primary School of Haidari (Athens – Greece). Being three countries from the north of Europe and three from the south also helped us to compare different roles, habits (such as food and dietary habits) among all the participating countries. For achieving the above targets the partner organisations arranged and coordinated together activities connected to the three main areas: mental health / emotional education / social health and wellbeing; physical fitness and exercise; nutrition / healthy eating / optimal sleep and rest. These activities followed different methodological approaches so they ensured a maximum number of students took part on them. Activities were adapted to different age groups and diversity, arranging different options for Special Needs students and other learners with difficulties. Apart from these activities, it became essential the participation of teachers from each school to the Learning Teaching Training Activities which were organised during four different weeks at diverse partners schools, and where all of them attended conferences, lectures, workshops conducted by experts from universities, NGOs, local voluntary organisations and specialists. These training sessions allowed participant teachers acquire a valuable knowledge that was shared with colleagues back at their schools in peer coach sessions. Then each partner organisation adapted that new expertise in activities to implement with students. All the resultant activities and studies were shared with families, local community and regional services through different vias: uploading information in the project website; writing reports; workshops and conferences open to the local areas and teachers network in general. With all that, the intention of the project was to arrive to the maximum number of individuals as possible. What the project pretended to improve was not just the partners organisations taking part in the project, but all their local communities, creating a network of expertise in Europe. All activities and results were shared in our project website, from which we are very proud to run: www.erasmusplushappens.com. It is a very clear website to navigate where visitors can find two different sections. The first one works like a blog space where we have published all activities undertaken by all partner schools at their countries. The second section is static and there visitors can access to different project information such as: Learning Teaching Training Activities programmes, activities, powerpoints from the different speeches; ready-to-use lesson plans at any school, e-books; project posters that can be download and use;... it is an open and free space open to everyone and our intention is to keep it that way for years to come. For all participants this project has been a complete success. We have improved and enriched our school curriculum with dynamic and great activities and actions that will endure in time. We have created links with local authorities and companies generating future collaboration. We consider this project as a seed, which has already given us significant results, but many more are yet to come."