Above European Borders, Across the Time

The project “Above the European Borders, Across the Time” was created by four partners from Sweden, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands. We were inspired by strong connections in the history of our countries, and sharing the Baltic Sea waters. Our inspiration also came from the celebration of the Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 in Europe. In our project we wanted to show our teenage students the links between cultural heritage and the world of today. We also wanted to motivate them to think about sustainable development for a better future in Europe. The teachers involved, found it interesting to consider different approaches towards inclusion of students with special needs, conditioned by different factors.The most important aim of our project was to create a successful partnership between our schools based on teamwork between students and teachers. We engaged more than one hundred 13-year-old students directly into the project activities and included students with special educational needs and those who needed economic support. It was a great opportunity to improve communicative skills in foreign languages via different digital tools, and in direct contacts during students’ exchanges. It allowed all participants to learn about cultural diversity of all partner countries, and at the same time, to strengthen our European identity. The main result of our project was the Imaginary Travel Agency which offers “trips” to the past and to the future. Our students traveled in time to understand the origins of pieces of art which now belong to our cultural heritage, to learn about our cultural roots and traditions. The history of all partner countries is inseparable and has its ups and downs. We focused on the examples of collaboration such as, for example, the union of Hanseatic cities. We focused on the past and its influence on the future. Indirectly we involved sustainable development by focusing on connections between the past, the present and the future.The Travel Agency web page, is now filled with presentations, posters, leaflets and fact files. We also created a mini dictionary of expressions connected to cultural heritage issues, which presented translations from English into all four languages of the partner schools. During a workshop in Germany our students created graffiti artwork with all the words from our mini-dictionary list.The last, but not least important outcome of our project is a set of documents created by teachers from all partner schools involving different strategies and methodologies of inclusion of students with less chances. The documents will present some case studies, observations and examples of activities created to support the inclusion process and can be used in further, educational processes.This project helped our students to raise the awareness of culture and language. They realized the importance of learning English in their everyday life and they can actually use it to communicate with others. The group of teachers are going to continue to work in an international environment and look for new, innovative methods of teaching and supporting our students. This project showed us how to do it. We are going to share some interesting, educational ideas to increase students' interest and motivation. All in all, we would like to make Erasmus projects a regular part of our school lives.