Be the Guardian of the Galaxy Yourself!

"<< Background >>Be the Guardian of the Galaxy Yourself!Our project originated from the pandemic situation in 2021 and the need for the global responsibility. The latter can't be completed without individual responsibility and that was what we found to be the problematic field where the young generation should be given reinforcement and guidelines.A film - ""Guardians of the Galaxy"", gave the idea for the frame of the activities - a role play where our participants could use all their skills, competencies and imagination to build up an 'ideal' society on their new planets in the first part of our project. In the second part they ""returned"" to the Earth and tried to use their new ideas, while concentrating on not going back to 'normal', because 'normal' was the problem before COVID19. In this way they became the Guardians of the Galaxy themselves.Teachers were the accompanying and contributing helpers of the process, connecting students and decision makers at local, regional, national and international community levels. As the five carefully chosen participating schools come from different European regions with different cultural backgrounds it allowed us to learn about, connect and accept each other more easily.<< Objectives >>We knew that this teenage generation was grown up enough to think responsibly about their future but young enough to take part in a game where they could make decisions influencing their future. We were aware of how difficult it would be to motivate them, involve them in any activities and get them to work persistently. We knew that this must be a long process, a project that cannot be measured in years, but it is our task to start a new way of thinking and draw our students' attention to the importance of individual responsibility. We also wanted to lay down or improve the guidelines on the fields of environmental and social sustainability with the help of our colleagues, students' parents and local stakeholders on different levels. We tried to show them good practices, techniques how to acquire them and cooperate with their International friends in team work. As English was the language of our communication it was also a requirement to improve our colleagues' and students' language competences. At the same time our goal was that the teachers could gain an insight into the life of the partner schools, exchange ideas with their colleagues during job shadowing, and return home with new experiences to do even more effective work.<< Implementation >>When we planned the activities, several aspects had to be taken into account. One was to let the creativity of our students develop and to rely on their ideas, rather than the teachers wanting to put their own ideas first (e.g.: how to build up an 'ideal' society on their “planet”, how to establish their healthy and sustainable life, how to introduce their ideas to the others, elect their representatives, perform their goals and results...)The other aspect was that students of different ages should have tasks that complement each other and help them achieve their goals (e.g.: the idea of the planets came from the elder ones but the younger ones drew the illustrations for the Travelling Exhibition or for Our Green Book...)Not all of the participating students study English, but we wanted to involve them in the work as well (e.g.: they could also take part in the story writing of Our Green Book, but the English translation may have been completed by somebody else or everyone could enter the logo competition, just as in the design of Our Call To Action...) In this way, we were able to address more students and everyone could feel that the project belonged to them.The tasks were clearly formulated at the beginning. We asked the students which areas of the new life they wanted to change and improve on their imaginary planets, and we selected these by voting. In the first half of the project, the role-play proved to attract attention, the students actively participated in the world of fantasy, in the creation of the planets. In the second phase, when we ""returned to Earth"", much more specific tasks were required. Students prepared surveys, conducted researches, wrote summaries, gave presentations, prepared PPTs, took part in field trips, studied the local conditions and problems, attempted to work out solutions for community problems, participated in community activities and projects - concerning the daily lives of them. Here, much more help was needed from the adults. We tried to motivate them with playful tasks, such as story writing, escape room designing, board game planning.In addition to the jointly planned tasks, there were also ones each school came up with and carried out themselves (e.g. garbage collection, family day, planting plants, cleaning around the school).All of these activities could be followed month by month on our common website in the ""Calendar"" section.https://guardianofgalaxypr.wixsite.com/project01/copy-of-our-goals<< Results >>By the end of our cooperation we gained quantitative and qualitative results as project outputs. With our project we wanted to achieve that the students themselves would be the real results , who – if we were successful – would think responsibly about their environment and their future, take an active part in social activities, dare to express opinions and communicate in a foreign language as well. We wanted them not have problems with inclusion, diversity and fairness towards their fellows with fewer opportunities or disadvantages. We gained qualitative results all the participants could benefit from: a better qualified teaching staff who were able to prepare and use new and motivating formal and non-formal activities with their students, creating new teaching ideas, focusing on examples of good practices to be used in the schools visited - teachers who could cope with ICT knowledge, raising students' and teachers' self awareness while working together, improving intercultural sensitivity, especially those who rarely meet children from other cultures, providing more comprehensive perception on European cultural and social environment for pupils with different social, cultural and economic backgrounds, improving students' language learning skills and competence in life-long learning.We uploaded 17 different project results - as quantitative results of our cooperation.We hope that we have taken a big step forward towards a more liveable environment, we have managed to draw the attention of not only our students, but also their parents, teachers and local stakeholders to the problems that surround us. By visiting the partner schools, we gained good practical experience and were able to talk about difficulties and possible failures.All of the concrete results are uploaded on our common website in the ""Project Results"" section and could be followed during the whole project.https://guardianofgalaxypr.wixsite.com/project01/project-results"