DEveloping interdisciplinary Methodologies in Education Through Enhanced Relationships between schools and farms

"Demeter project was a three-years KA2 Erasmus+ project started in September 2018 and ended in August 2021. The entire title ""DEveloping new interdisciplinary MEthodologies in education Through Enhanced Relationships between schools and farms"" express the need of accompany the use of technology at school with the use of natural settings and inspiration provided by one of the first activity of the history of man: agriculture. Skills-related memories from planting, smelling and walking around a farm, doing experiments and using language are harder to forget. Cognitive memories from the classroom are more likely to be forgotten. Furthermore, all the project partners come from rural areas and are interested in giving new impulses to the local communities by fostering the relations among all the components of their system (Schools, business and public authorities). The partners have defined the following specific objectives on the basis of common needs of participating schools and organisations: 1. To increase the integration of experience of farms into the school curriculum in the framework of a wider path of education to food, respect for the environment, health 2. To improve the teaching skills among school teachers and educational farms operators by exchanging, consolidating and developing methodologies appropriate to a farm experience 3. To create synergies among education, institutions, business and research for the improvement of education. In order to achieve the above mentioned objective, the partners have developed 2 intellectual outputs: IO1: An interdisciplinary teaching methodology based on the collaboration between schools and farms. It consists of a physical and virtual toolkit containing all the practices divided for subjects that can be carried out in a school year with the collaboration of farmers. The toolkit has been translated in 4 languages: English, Swedish, Italian and Portuguese in order to facilitate the use. IO2: Guidelines aimed at facilitating the use of the interdisciplinary methodology in other schools and countries. They contain step-by-step procedures to set up educational activities between schools and farms, including, the preconditions necessary, the practical/operative instructions and quality indicators to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of activities. The partners had the possibility to meet in three physical Transnational Project Meetings (hosted by Vänersborg municipality, Washingborough Academy and SERN). The remaining three TPM insteead took place in a digital form, on the Teams platform, due to the covid-19 pandemic and travel restrictions. A Learning Teaching and Training Activity was organized digitally: the event was attended by 30 participants, among teachers, school and university staff, civil servants, and technicians with the aim to preparing the practitioners involved in the testing of the interdisciplinary methodology developed. According tho the project application, we should have arranged 2 sets of multiplier events, carried out in parallel in Sweden, Italy, Portugal and England. Due to the covid 19 pandemic, each country, in a digital form. Each country organized single multiplier event by inviting so many participants as possible. The purpose of the events was still the same, that to spread information about the project outputs and results among school staff (teachers, managers, administrators...), public authorities (politicians and civil servants in the municipalities, regions as well as national agencies), Universities/research centers, business representatives. Dissemination activites were carried out by all the project partners. The multi-actors composition of the partnership has been and added value in terms of dissemination of project´s results, since partners had access to multiple networks of stakeholders dealing with school education from different perspectives and at different levels (local, regional, national, European). As a result of the activities carried out, DEMETER has: delivered two innovative outputs; increased the collaboration among farmers and teachers; increased the skills and knowledge of the participants.One of the most relevant impacts of DEMETER has been the increased collaboration among teachers in school through the interdisciplinary methodology that linked learning outcomes of multiple subjects to teaching in farm or with farmers. Last but not least, pupils have been the final beneficiary, the project has created more interactive teaching practices that increased their participation and performance in all subjects, especially science and maths, which are a priority at European level. By studying in farms they also learned transversal competences such as: raise awareness on environmental, food related issues, and the resources of their rural community. All these elements will contribute to raise more aware citizens of tomorrow."