"MASTICH - MAthematics & Science Through Intangible Cultural Heritage, is an one year project, implemented by two Secondary Education Schools in Cyprus and Belgium. Around 100 pupils are involved in the project aged 14 to 16 years. supported by a team of teachers from both schools.The idea for the project has come as a result of a UNESCO-EU joint project/ workshop ""Integrating Intangible Cultural Heritage in School-Based Education"" in which both schools had been chosen to participate, among ten schools all over EU, in total. The two schools have utilized and small scale project, of one Lesson Plan, where Mathematics and Science were taught through Intangible Cultural Heritage elements. After evaluating the results, the positive attitude of the pupils towards this approach was noted and the prospect of expanding on this experience, using the knowledge obtained through the training, as well as the experience as a whole, appeared to be the only route to follow. The project aims in realizing 20 more Lesson Plans, supported by audiovisual material, documentations and dynamic worksheets, developed by the pupils and implemented in the classroom by their teachers. The objectives of MASTICH are to:- Improve pupils' understanding and academic achievement in Mathematics and Science- Help pupils discover the cultural richness of their roots and form their own identity.- Grow pupils' respect for different cultures - Eliminate issues originating from cultural, religious or social differences- Increase pupils' soft skills: group work, time management, leadership, creativity, emotional intelligence, flexibility.- Achieve better linguistic skills, in English- Enhance the sentiment of belonging in a common European family The expected outcomes include:- Twenty Lesson Plans, of teaching Mathematics and Science through ICH.- Audiovisual material (interviews, excursions, performances) and digital or physical documentations on ICH- Dynamic GeoGebra worksheets embedded with ICH elements.- A variety of articles and presentations on diverse ICH elements - ""ICH ... through My Own Roots""- A long list of Creative ideas on how to match ICH elements with Mathematical/ Science conceptsFurthermore, the progress achieved on the objectives the project has set is going to be assessed throughout its lifetime and the evaluation results are expected to present a concrete proof of improvement in all related aspects.The lessons developed during the lifetime of MASTICH, including the GeoGebra Dynamic Worksheets, the Audiovisual supporting material and the lesson plans are expected to be used in teaching for years to come, as they will never ""get old"" - neither Mathematics nor ICH get old, they are timeless. They will also be flexible enough to be adapted to meet the educational needs of other grades, as this can easily be done in Mathematics and Science. The two participating schools are expecting a long lasting positive impact on the school environment, the relations between the students, who are in high percentage coming from a plethora of cultural, religious and social backgrounds and the schools' image."

The escalating levels of social and economic complexity present challenges for education policy-making in today’s globalized world. To tackle with this, learners have to be globally competent; this means that they have to be able to examine local, global and intercultural issues, to understand the perspectives and world views of others, to engage in open and effective interactions with people from different cultures, and to act for collective well-being and sustainable development. This is how PISA 2018 defined GLOBAL COMPETENCE and this is why Global Citizenship Education is needed because it empowers learners of all ages to assume active roles, both locally and globally, in building more peaceful, tolerant, inclusive and secure societies.Fostering Global Competence in Schools implies supporting individuals in acquiring and developing basic skills and key competences, and strengthening the profiles of the teaching professions. These reasons let us set two general objectives of this project and several specific objectives.1.To support the deployment of Global Competence in different European education Systems1.1.To set a framework to guide the education systems in accordance with the national curriculums1.2.To embed global competence in the professional development plans of teaching professions and other stakeholders2.To foster learners’ achievement of 21st century skills and topics for a deeper learning, a stronger European citizenship and a better integration in global society2.1.To identify school good practices on global competence2.2.To enable and empower teaching staff on global competence2.3.To develop cross-curricular projects that enhance learners’ global competenceIn a European project, it is important to generate and share new knowledge collaboratively; this is why we have created a partnership with different stakeholders: schools, universities and educational authorities, from 3 different countries with different schools systems and different school traditions. The partnership is formed by 7 institutions from Belgium, Spain and the UK. The coordinator is the Barcelona Inspectorate of Education, a local educational authority, which supervises and evaluates equity in schools. In terms of educational authorities with similar competencies, we have as partners, GO! Scholengroep Brussel. We also count with 3 schools who have successfully tackled with cross-curricular global projects. Finally, the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and the Institute of Education Science at University of Barcelona (IPD-ICE) have expert knowledge on professional development, curriculum and key competences and are essential to set theoretical frameworks and publish good quality materials. The target participants of the project are:- Students. They will improve their global competence through cross-curricular projects and they will participate in a short-term exchange. They will also participate in awareness activities (logo and audiovisual competitions).-Teachers and school leaders are the key to spread good school practices in schools, to implement global competence and to supply a bottom-up perspective.-University researchers will provide the theoretical knowledge of the topic and advice on professional development.-Educatiol authorities staff will enhance policies on global competence in the schools within their area of influence.To achieve the objectives of the project, we will produce:-General activities: project website, logo and audiovisual competition, erasmus+ corners, term newsletters.-Intellectual outputs: global competence toolkit for teachers, teacher training course on global competence and an academic global competence portal with theoretical framework, bibliography and recorded good practices.We expect the following results:-Students will improve their communication skills, their knowledge on 21st century issues and on social, European and global citizenship.-School teachers will be empowered to deal with global competence in their schools due to professional development course and the availability of tools to implement classroom projects.-Educational stakeholders will become more aware of the importance of global competence due to the availability of the project’s intellectual outputs and the dissemination activities: meetings, newsletters and multiplier events.-All the staff in the project institutions will increase their knowledge and expertise on global competence thanks to their participation in the projectWe also expect a very important outcome, which is an increase of the number of schools that implement classroom practices on global competence through cross-curricular projects within the project's area of influence. We have set a dashboard of output and outcome indicators to measure the results and the impact. The availability of all the products developed in the project in different open platforms will ensure the sustainability and the longer term benefits of it

School education plays an important part in the process of socialization, social inclusion and the building of representation of others. Using informal education outside the school walls, such as school trips, is one of the main challenges of the educational system in Europe for the upcoming years. School trips are widely recognized as valuable educational tools increasing knowledge and providing higher levels of thinking strategies. Research has highlighted that students tend to be more attentive when learning “extra muros”, whereas from the educators’ perspective trips are also a significant contribution to the learning experience as they are unique educational experiences for the youngsters. Traveling, with its transformative capacity at societal level, appears to be an adequate tool for preventing and reducing conflicts and deal in a constructive and peacebuilding manner with stereotyped representations. In that perspective educational school trips aiming at intercultural encounters contributing to reconsider negative stereotypes and reduce prejudices appear to be an innovative tool.The objective of the project was to develop intercultural competences and skills among students at secondary school of grade 10 (age 15) by assessing cultural representations, preparing and realising school trips to a partner country. The age of the participating pupils has been chosen for various reasons; they have acquired sufficient language skills but are still in the ‘impressionable phase’ or their development. The aim was to tackle and surpass the existing stereotypes and to lower prejudice by immersing the students in another cultural context. The project wished to go beyond general cultural representations and provide students with a deeper insight on cultural characteristics, such as lifestyle, cultural heritage and social habits.The project covers 4 academic partners (education, political sciences and tourism studies) and 4 education practitioners (teachers and principals) from 4 different regions from Europe (Belgium, Bulgaria, Greece and Spain).Participants were the students of the partner schools. The selected classes were in charge (with the support of their teachers) to prepare the incoming trip. They selected the activities and material they consider representative for their country/city and prepared the visits.Each school had two partners (IN and OUT). Proceeding like this, the project provided each partner school with two intercultural experiences:- Brussels’s school “visited” Sofia and hosted the pupils from Barcelona.- Sofia’s school “visited” Athens and hosted pupils from Brussels- Athens’s school “visited” Barcelona and hosted pupils from Sofia- Barcelona’s school “visited” Brussels and hosted pupils from AthensGiven the special circumstances caused by the Covid-19 crisis that greatly impacted the project activities the trips were adapted to virtual exchanges. The adaptation of the programs and activities was done with the active engagement of the participants and respected the initial spirit and aim of the project. The core objective was directly related to the need for a transnational approach, as in addition to the positive and constructive cognitive experience, the intercultural exchanges contributed to the shaping of a sense of place and a European identity through the building of bridges encompassing geographical and cultural boundaries.BAS developed a structured tool for organizing educational intercultural school trips. Working with several groups from different countries offered the possibility to measure preconceptions about other cultures. Following these groups over time (before, during and after a trip) provided the opportunity to assess changes in attitudes. The project used a combination of an online survey (measuring knowledge, attitudes, satisfaction levels) before and after the school trips, together with experience sampling measurements to measure perceptions and emotions on the spot during the exchanges.The outcomes of this project were:1. adjusting stereotypes of the participating students and building bridges and an intergroup contact between pupils from different communities.2. an innovative methodological tool to collect data on perceptions and cultural representations.3. scientific Insight in the most relevant variables influencing the effectiveness of educational school trips in curbing stereotypes.4. a toolbox for organising educational school trips, including guidelines for organising intercultural encounters between pupils of that age.5. dissemination through a multiplier event and existing networks.6. after the completion/implementation of the tested intercultural school trips using the toolbox at European level.The project can be extended to other schools from the region/countries. It provides a validated tool to organise effective educational school trips in adjusting prejudices and stereotypes and fostering European integration.