In our Erasmus+ KA229-Project “ERASMUS FOR FUTURE“, schools from five different countries are going to deal with the topic climate change together. This topic is equally important for all the people involved. Nevertheless, the schools come from five very different parts of Europe, including different geographical, climatic and economic conditions, and thus have their very own approaches to this topic. The project’s goal is, on the one hand, to sharpen our students’ and our communities’ awareness concerning climate change including a willingness to get involved on a political and personal level. On the other hand, we want to show our participating students European diversity, and, very importantly, the relevance of European and global co-operation as this challenge can only be tackled by common international collaboration. Within the framework of the interdisciplinary project work the students involved are going to gain and enhance various competences e. g. on the intercultural, digital and linguistic level.Secondary schools from Denmark, Spain, Rumania, Turkey and Germany will take part in the project. These partner schools were chosen as participants because of their students’ common age and their geographical location in order to ensure a broad European variety (see above). Students from the age of 14 to 16 will patriciate in the project. During the project’s time span of 24 months they will work in school clubs on the topics of the project’s particular parts. Three meetings will be held to ensure the exchange of their work results and to enable further common work on the project. These meetings will be joined by 5 to 8 students from each country and 2-3 mentoring teachers. There will be two more meetings of the mentoring teachers, one to prepare the project with regards to content and organisation, the other to evaluate it. The project is divided into three thematic parts: in the first part of the project the students are going to collect information about the causes and consequences of climate change. On the one hand the students from the different schools will deal with the same tasks as they will all explore the situation in their home-country or region with regards to climate-damaging conduct and country specific perceptible and anticipated consequences of climate change. On the other hand each team will do research on different aspects of climate change, e.g. concerning main polluters and global consequences. Their results will be provided on posters which will be presented in an exhibition during the first meeting and subsequently during all other meetings of the project so that all schools and school communities can benefit from it. In the second part the students will deal with the question which political actions, meant to confront climate change, are possible and advisable. They come in contact with politicians in their communities, but also on a regional and national level, and investigate which strategies and interests exist, for example with regards to a reduction of climate-damaging emissions. The second meeting will be organised and performed as a simulation game with the title “International climate conference”. Mixed groups with students from all the participating countries working together are going to represent five nations, which are affected by climate change on very different levels (USA, China, the Netherlands, Bangladesh) and which consequently promote oppositional interests. The mixed groups will be formed in advance of the second meeting which enables the students to prepare thoroughly their role as representatives of one of the nations mentioned above. In order to do so they will communicate via eTwinning. In the last part of the project the students reflect on manageable measures that will boost climate protection at their schools and in their communities. They will engage in activities to promote such measures at their schools. Their efforts will be filmed and presented during the last meeting. The results of all the project parts will be made accessible and usable for all the students of the five schools as well as for other interested people via the public Twinspace and the Erasmus+ project platform, in particular the poster exhibition with all its collateral material and the simulation game “International climate conference”. Another lasting benefit is ensured by the establishment of climate friendly measures at the five different schools. These measures will be filmed and thus can form an example for other schools. Sustainability and climate protection are going to be implemented into the overall concepts of all five schools in order to turn them into climate friendly schools. We want to achieve an enhancement of our students’ key skills through their participation in this project oriented and interdisciplinary learning experience in a genuine thematic context.

In light of the increasing negative impacts of tourism on European coastal areas, environment and sustainability have become a matter of considerable importance in modern-day society. Initiatives such as Fridays for future indicate that even the youth among Europe recognizes this a relevant topic. Thus, our project Tourism and Sustainability in European Coastal Areas shall draw attention to the significance of creating a new kind of tourism, namely one that suits today’s requirements of environmental and touristic sustainability to counteract the negative consequences of the growing (mass) tourism. Our plan is to raise awareness among our students about the unfavourable repercussions of “traditional” tourism to a country’s local nature, heritage and environment, explaining the causes of it (competition in the international hotel industries) and demonstrating possibilities to enhance a sustainable way of tourism. This way our students are required to invent a kind of tourism that creates a positive impact on the inhabitants, environment, culture and economy, while leaving only a minimal footprint on the surrounding ecosystem and respecting local traditions, natural resources and residents. The matter of sustainability is the most crucial aspect of our work. As the topic is quite ambitious and demanding the participating students should be aged between 16 and 19, interested in European topics and well-grounded in the English language (project language) to be able to plan and put into practice such a sophisticated project. To ensure a wide-ranging overview of the situation in Europe as a whole, our campaign will be realized with groups of about 20 students and 2 teachers from 6 different European countries (Croatia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). The schools taking part in the programme are all located in a touristic European coastal area, either on an island or peninsula. All of them are affected directly or indirectly by (seasonal) tourism, hence the topic of our project is relevant to all those present at the educational institutions. The programme we devised will include 6 project meetings (one in each country) and several project related activities in the periods in between the on-site presences. Assuming the main issues during the project meetings will be tourism and sustainability and even though some activities will be part of every meeting (surveys on touristic behaviour among students, locals, tourists and people working in touristic sectors), we would like to determine divergent priorities and key aspects for each meeting. Starting with an analysis of tourism (Which areas does it affect and to what extent does it work successfully? What are potential beneficial or negative side effects of tourism?) we will later on examine various aspects of these areas that may have an effect on the development of tourism, focusing alternately on nature, history, cultural heritage, inhabitants and the touristic behaviour of every individual. We will contrast the popular form of all-inclusive tourism to an eco-friendlier kind of tourism, taking into account economical aspects such as competitiveness and also considering cruise tourism. For this purpose, we will contact the UNESCO, NGO’s, local politicians, hotel managers, tourists and locals to get access to all different angles. We would like to investigate the role of all participants in the tourism sector as well as the role of our students themselves regarding the future development of tourism and the means each group can possibly use to make an indispensable contribution to more sustainability. Through the usage of surveys, interviews, personal diaries, photos and video recordings, we will be able to record our findings in our planned final products, namely a book containing all the analysed surveys, conclusions deduced from the realised interviews and diary entries, themed material for future classes, short films on the advantages and disadvantages of tourism in European coastal areas also including advice for the future, brochures on ways of achieving a more sustainable tourism in the investigated areas, as well as a website and a TwinSpace where all the final products and the partial results will be available to the public. At the end of the project, we hope to not only have promoted our student’s key competences (methodological, intercultural, linguistic) and their awareness for the increasing need of sustainability, but also have made a major contribution to reach a wider audience (all people participating in the school communities as well as many inhabitants of the corresponding regions) and to win them over to a more sustainable tourism. Therefore, we will also conduct a holiday competition among the participating students and a public presentation. If our students and other residents changed their views on tourism and realised that everyone can contribute to a more sustainable tourism, we would have achieved all of our aims.