Over the last year we have seen an unprecedented rise in public awareness regarding the unnecessary use of plastics especially single use plastic bottles, plastic bags and in food wrapping. This has led to campaigns in the media by young people on social media and other public platforms.As a result, in January 2018 the European Commission launched the First-ever Europe-wide strategy on plastics. In their report the Commission claims ‘The million tonnes of plastic litter that end up in the oceans every year are one of their most visible and alarming signs of the plastics problem, causing growing public concern. And with a single market for goods, this is a problem that necessarily requires a joint European response’. We simply could not manage this project on our own. We need a Europe wide approach to this global crisis.The Commission's strategy sets out plans to protect the environment from plastic pollution whilst promoting growth and innovation. This is the first Erasmus+ project in our regions to take up this mantle. Through this project we aim to develop teaching methods which tackle these issues and capitalise on the growing interest by young people in this topic to improve the competences and skills of our learners and their teachers whilst enthusing children from all backgrounds to engage in education. We aim to meet the challenges set out in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide and encourage young learners to play a role in active citizenship.Teachers will work closely together to support young learners and develop new classroom materials, promoting creativity and innovation throughout. They will engage in mobilities to develop their own skills and competences. Not only in teaching and learning, and creative teaching practices, but in confidence in managing a project such as this. Classroom practitioners will share good practice and bring new ideas to their own teaching practices in addition to disseminating good practice with other professionals in school and across regions.Pupils will benefit from training in running campaigns in their schools and in the community to reduce plastic waste. They will learn negotiating skills, understand the impact economically of plastic use reduction and apply this knowledge when approaching their campaigns. We will encourage our young people to be innovative in their approach. They will produce digital materials for use locally by the wider community but that they will share with other schools in their regions. More details can be found in the intellectual outputs section of this application.Pupils from all countries will engage in intercultural dialogue with each other through etwinning and other digital media, such as Whatsapp, Skype, email etc on a regular basis. We recognise the importance of pupil exchange so have built in number of pupil exchange visits. These visits will enrich the cultural understanding of all participants and impact greatly on global citizenship skills. A pupil conference will be held at the end of year 2 to which other schools will be invited and encouraged to start their own projects through, perhaps Erasmus+ KA2 Strategic or School Exchange Partnerships.Teachers, too, will benefit by engaging in the teacher training and job-shadowing activities which will develop competences in all participants.

The projectAcross countries, we were aware that the impact of cultural heritage upon economy, environment and society is large (Horizon 2020; “Getting cultural heritage to work for Europe”). The aim of this project was to support students and teachers in developing skills in order to research their own culture and become proud of their heritage. We were also eager to develop their ability to engage with the heritage of other cultures and the confidence to discuss culture differences confidently and openly. We also hoped to provide students and teachers with a range of tools in which to measure attitudes to different cultures and map their development through different activities and projects.The project we designed had four goals that we aimed to attain. 1.Supporting the students on the project to engage in critical thinking about their previous ideas regarding stereotypes and prejudices about other countries, whilst also reflecting upon their relationship with their own culture. 2.Developing a teacher training programme that would empower teachers to open up classrooms to cultural conversations that were not merely celebratory: allowing students to reflect on which aspects of cultures (their own and others) they enjoy and which they merely tolerate. 3.Using this rich intercultural dialogue to set up a series of “tried and tested” lessons to teach culture within the classroom. These lessons would be generated and tested out by different partners, who would feed back on their value in an honest professional exchange about best practice for cultural teaching and learning. 4.Bringing students and teachers together using digital means (including a Model United Nations format) to enable them to practice and share the skills they had learned in the sharing of and negotiating with different cultures and use these varying perspectives to engage in innovative solutions to global problems. Our hope was that, through engaging with this project, we would observe an observable growth in the knowledge, skills and attitudes outlined by the Oxfam guide for Global Citizenship. Below you can see a breakdown of how these knowledge, skills and attitudes related specifically to our project: Knowledge Diversity - participant can describe the impact of prejudice and stand up for equityEquality – participants can describe the value of different countries to the collective, that each are diverse but equalSkillsCritical thinking – Participants can identify stereotypes and ask honest questionsSelf-Awareness – Participants are aware of how their culture allows them to see the world from one perspectiveAttitudes Identity and self-esteem - Participants can explain their identity and is open to those of othersRespect for human rights – Challenges prejudice and believes in integrationThese definitions have been taken from the Oxfam Education for Global Citizenship Document. For a full reference, please go to https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10546/620105/edu-global-citizenship-schools-guide-091115-en.pdf?sequence=11&isAllowed=yWhilst the definitions above references the intended outcomes for students, we also aimed to see teachers develop both in their ability to start conversations with students and in creating a classroom that looks thoroughly at culture. The Oxfam guide breaks down the themes described by age, and the hope was that teachers would work at the higher levels of the same themes, where they would develop in their own practice of critical reflection and engage in a rich and multi-cultural professional dialogue which would enable their teaching and learning techniques to become richer and more thoughtful for future years.The progression shown by students, teachers and schools on the My Place, Your Place, Our Place project have demonstrated that it is possible to engage students in thinking critically about their cultural development but that we must revise the way that we teach and learn in order to do this. This may come from giving schools more time to teach this subject discreetly or in reflecting on the value of what we currently provide for students. In supporting teachers, we need to continue developing and sharing tools that allow for controversial conversations and first-hand experiences, whilst also offering time to collaborate critically with other cultures and reflect on their own practice. In this way, we can begin to allow students to build their own cultural relationships and connections through a series of first hand experiences, including student exchanges with new, unfamiliar practices, people and languages, a practice that will introduce them to a world that is only growing more globalized.