Future, Ambitions and Challenges for Europe

"Students aged between 12 and 16 from six schools situated in France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Turkey, have carried out a three-year project turned towards the future of Europe and entitled F.A.C.E. (Future, Ambitions and Challenges for Europe). We have identified various challenges that our students, as European citizens, must face for a better future and which cover issues relevant to each partner country, and more specifically to the areas where our schools are located. We have divided these challenges into three topics, one studied each year, with an end-of-year European multiplier event aiming at presenting the productions made to the public, local authorities and media, and thus at increasing the impact of the project.Year 1 : Environmental and technological challengesObjective: raise awareness of environmental issues and the need to use renewable energies as well as ecological materials in the building of houses.Students have carried out research on environmental issues specific to their areas in order to create posters and sensitize people over these issues. The knowledge acquired, the visits and encounters made with companies / organisations involved in the protection of the environment have enabled students to come up with their own innovations in the building of ecological house models, which in turn have led to the making of a common model gathering the best concepts. The posters and European model were presented at the end of the year on the occasion of a European Environmental Exhibition and Conference in Norway, open to the public.Year 2 : Economic and Health ChallengesObjectives :- Economy : reinforce partnerships between schools and companies with a view to promoting youth employment by local companies and the opening-up of SMEs to European trade.- Health : sensitize students from an early age over the necessity to adopt a healthy lifestyle based on a healthy diet and the practice of sport.Students have met entrepreneurs and visited local companies working in the main sector of activity of their area so as to gather the necessary information for the creation of a European multilingual marketing brochure entitled ""Made Here"". A ""Made Here"" website presenting local companies and promoting their products and know-how was also created.On the health topic, videos and apps aiming at sensitizing people over the necessity to adopt a healthy lifestyle were created.All theses productions were presented at the end of the year on the occasion of a European Economic and Health Fair in France, open to the public.Year 3 : Cultural and Identity ChallengesObjectives : promote our European identity based on common values while emphasizing local specificities as well as similarities between our cultures, with a view to fighting prejudice and ensuring a serene future for European relations.The work of students involved different artistic aspects, all enabling a reflection on local / European identity and on FACE :- creation of a digital art book on local art and creation by students of their own ""real"" art book- writing of a European song on the topic of European identity- creation of a European play (writing, staging, performance)The play was performed before an audience at the end of the year on the occasion of a European Performance in Sweden, with presentation of the art book and of the FACE song.The project has enabled to reach our objectives in relation to the development of students' core competences (foreign languages, ICT, science, writing skills) and skills essential for lifelong learning and the insertion into the professional world: entrepreneurship, initiative, teamwork, autonomy, creativity, problem-solving, etc.The impact of the project has been significant on different levels/scales, especially as regards :- students : development of competences, opening-up to Europe and awareness of the issues studied- teachers : skill enhancement through the pooling of competences and practices- schools : development of teamwork, opening-up to international cooperation and reinforcement of partnerships with the local socio-economic world- local community : the awareness actions (especially towards other schools) and events organised in relation to the project, and especially the European events organised in rural areas, have had a significant impact on local life.- national / European scale : the sharing of our experience through our project website, Facebook page, E+PRP platform has already benefited and will benefit other organisations willing to launch into this kind of project."