In January 2018 teachers from Gladsaxe gymnasium, Denmark, Gymnazium Myjava, Slovakia and Lovisa gymnasium, Finland met in Slovakia to discuss engaging in a common Erasmus+ project together with Fjölbrautaskóli Norðurlands Vestra school, Iceland that joined the meeting on skype. The meeting was a success and all four countries agreed on making a project together. All schools shared a common concern about how their students slowly withdrew from a European identity and tended to roam in the same circles as their local peers, being more and more scared of embracing the differences of each other. With this in mind, we chose the theme of radicalism as the pivotal point for the two-year project period. The Covid-19 situation led us to prolong the project by 12 months with hopes of being able to go through with the last mobility. We agreed to have four mobilities where each school was responsible for preparing a mobility with focus on a sub-theme that is essential for understanding and fighting radicalism, namely: 1) “prejudism and cultural inclusion”, 2) “What is radicalism and how to fight it?”, 3) “What are the factors that could make young people radical?” and finally, 4) “Fake news and hoaxes”. The aim with the project was two-folded and deals with both empowering students to recognize and fight radicalism, but also to train teachers to recognize students that are at a risk of becoming radicalized and to obtain knowledge and tools to teach students about radicalism onwards. Unfortunately the Covid-19 situation made it impossible to carry out the last mobility in Slovakia, so the last sub-theme has not been worked with on a common basis. Within all three mobilities the content was focussed on social skills, the cultural meeting and learning activities connected to radicalism. The reason for this focus was based on the view that radicalism thrives in cultures where open-mindedness and acceptance of differences is absent. By bringing our students together in a project with a concrete cultural meeting and a focus on social skills, the students will obtain an open mind and empathy. This in combination with an ongoing learning process about what radicalism is, how to recognize it and how to fight it, has empowered the students to fight radicalism. The focus on the three sub-themes within the mobilities was meant to create the learning process through a variety of methodologies such as expert-lectures, group discussions, visits to institutions that fight radicalism, concrete workshops to learn tools such as navigating on the social media and an array of products, e.g. films, presentations, digital folders, dramas, vlogs etc. All skills that are connected to general study skills that in combination with the working language being English will benefit the students in their academic life in general. To ensure that the learning from mobility to mobility was passed on from student to student, but also disseminated on a larger scale, the students made presentations for their peers and parents at parent meetings before mobilities. In that way, everyone was prepared for the next mobility and giving a presentation helped in-depth learning. Because of the missing last mobility we were not able to make the final product as planned. But we still had the small products during the mobilities and the presentations at the parents’ meetings, which were good measures to see whether the aim of giving the students knowledge and tools to fight radicalism has been a success. Vlogs were used to evaluate the personal development amongst the students during mobilities and shared only with the teachers. These tools helped the students to reflect on what they experienced. All these evaluations have been important tools for the teachers to guide them in how to work with radicalism in the coming years. The potential longer term benefits of the project can be linked to the students, the teachers, the schools as organisations and the communities. First of all, the students have gained knowledge, skills and personal development that have empowered them to recognize and fight radicalism in the long run. Second of all, the teachers have developed new knowledge and teaching material about radicalism so they can help their students avoid being radicalized. Third, the schools as organizations will get better teachers, better students and gain expertise in internationalisation that can be used in the branding of the school. Lastly, the communities will get active young citizens that will help prevent radicalism and this will benefit minorities in all countries.

"The project ""GENIUS - Young Entrepreneurs in European Countries"" has emerged as a common idea of all participating schools. This project was innovative for all of these schools, since, except of one school, these are general education schools which do not include this subject in their programmes. It has touched upon the issue, which is currently fundamentally akin to all EU countries, because youth unemployment is reaching menacing numbers in some countries, approaching 50 percent.The basis for the whole project was the excellent interpersonal relationships among the participating schools, which were the guarantee of future successful cooperation. Almost all of us have got to know each other from previous activities. The entire project was well started up at the planning meeting held in February 2015 at our school and the first transnational meeting of project coordinators in Copenhagen.Five secondary schools were involved in the project: Gymnasium Myjava (SK), Loviisa Gymnasium (FI), Gladsaxe Gymnasium (DK), Lyceum of Eleftherios (GR) and IISS Enrico Medi (IT). They were, apart from the Italian school, related entities in size, number of students and educational programmes. In addition, they covered almost the whole of Europe - represented by the Nordic countries, central Europe and its southern part, so we really could look at the issue globally.The main objectives and outputs of this project can be divided into two parts: Part 1 was the output for all schools - didactic and study material that schools included in their curricula. This material creates a thematic unit dealing with issues of entrepreneurship, youth activism, labor market overview and the successful placement of young people in it. It will be taught as a whole for general-purpose humanities and as a cross-cutting theme for other subjects. Part 2 was the output of each student mobility made and these outputs were comprehensive and detailed business objectives (with a possible resultant product or service) that were presented not only during mobility but also after it, in their own schools and in local communities. Subsequently, as subsidiary material, they were included in the above-mentioned teaching materials within the curriculum of individual schools.During the duration of the project 5 mobilities were planned - each school sequentially hosted all other partners. The number of mobility participants,with the agreement of all the partners, was agreed on 6 students and 2 teachers from each school. During the week of mobility, students were accommodated in the host families and then they hosted foreign partners. Thus, twenty-four students and eight teachers from each school took part in the mobilities during the duration of the project.As we wanted to connect learning with practice as much as possible and use innovative “learning by doing”, we contacted some experts and businessman who participated in the project through professional lectures, demonstrations, guaranty of each activity and in two cases through the final assessment of student business plans. In addition, excursions and workshops took place in private companies, especially during mobilities. Work on the project, however, has not only been going during them, but in fact during all three years. At the schools, preparations were made in accordance with the topic and in cooperation with experts and authorities which culminated during the week of mobility through joint work in international teams, which output was complex proposal from foreign partners for an improved and detailed business plan, together with any product or service, developed in all aspects (idea, market research, budget, marketing, advertising, SWOT analysis, etc.) and analyzed in terms of all the positives and possible risks. In this way, students could inspire each other. The best intentions were subsequently presented at their own schools to other students and employees.Additionally, of course, the project also brought added value in the form of many benefits for schools and students. The long-term and sustainable benefits for schools are the follow-on drawings from the project results in the daily future teaching of the subject, this ensuring a positive impact for all current and future school students.The project was estimated by participating students and teachers with superlatives. Many of them, who have already had rich experience from previous projects, have evaluated this project as the best that their school has so far been involved in. Markus Gango, Lovisa Gymnasium (Finland): ""I think this GENIUS project was the best one I have experienced in my position as a Project Coordinator within 12 years, we had a great team of teachers and great students! We have certainly achieved something useful for school and future practical life.""The GENIUS project has clearly fulfilled all the goals set. At all schools, the sustainability of project outcomes for future students and educators is ensured."

<< Objectives >>The project responds to the current need to incorporate interdisciplinary learning in education in order to prepare high school students and university students for real life and broaden their understanding of the world. It aims at providing teachers with learning materials with interdisciplinary content so that the teachers would not see time investment and lack of resources as major challenges and they would have resources of high quality ready to be used by them.<< Implementation >>The project contains activities related to different aspects of interdisciplinary learning. These include preparation of digital interdisciplinary learning materials of high quality, validation of materials in a unique international setting of COIL in which students and teachers of high schools and universities will collaborate, and creation of the virtual resource centre in which students and teachers will share their experience with interdisciplinary learning.<< Results >>Major project results will be four digital course books of interdisciplinary lessons which would interconnect the subjects of literature, art & culture, civic education and history. The newly designed materials will be validated in eight cohorts of COIL in which students and teachers of all partner institutions will be involved. The third major result will be the virtual resource centre where students and teachers will interact and share their knowledge.