SYNOPSIS OF THE 1st COMENIUS MEETING
Kalamata October 13th – October 17th
MONDAY OCTOBER 13th –
Setting of the next two meetings.
The second meeting is to be held in BELGIUM from January 25th to January 31st. All partners should make an attempt to arrive on the 25th so that we can begin work on Monday the 26th.
The 3rd meeting à to be held in SPAIN May 10th – May 16th 2009.
The host country should send an invitation and a rough programme for the meeting. Also the host country will decide how many students it can accommodate and inform the others. Usually two students are taken to the meetings. The countries hosting will need to bring more so as to meet mobility requirements as stated on the application.
We also discussed possible host countries for the year 2009-2010: Italy, U.K, Estonia.
Discussion of administrative and financial procedures.
Each school coordinator should ask their agency.
If the mobilities are to be 12 each year or if the 24 required are simply within the two year period.
If the mobilities have a minimum – maximum amount of days (duration)
What receipts they need to have.
If the heads of each school can take part. If not can they ask for money for a school visit.
Please remember that certain actions are decentralized and therefore different for each country. Boarding passes and Confirmation of attendance letters are required by all countries.
Creation of the web site
The website for our project will be created by the British school. The Polish school will add an e-learning site that we can all use to upload news, photos, lesson plans, etc. Kathy (British team) may also put together a video for the end of the project if we all provide her with small clips.
Discussion of topic themes
We started discussion of our theme blocks. I gave you a sample lesson plans and I will send more by the end of the month. I will also send the cartoons and passages and quotes for the sample lesson plan. We discussed presentation of the themes and how we will present them.
Evaluation
We spoke of formative evaluation to be held at the meeting in Belgium. We also decided to have questionnaires that will test students’ knowledge at the beginning and at the end of the project as part of the summative evaluation.
Also we are to send any questions we would like to include in the evaluation. I will send more questionnaire questions- with the answers to everyone by the end of the month.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 14th
We continued discussion of our block themes. We decided that
Students will be presenting at the meetings.
The presentation should be no longer than 10 minutes each.
The presentation will be on two different days- five partners each day.
The presentation may be in any form each partners wants.
Each of us will present the following.
U.K - sustainable food
Estonia - Sea / forest or fishing
Poland – the influence of the forest on European ecosystems or organic food
Spain – sustainability
Bulgaria - Biodiversity in their area- endangered species
Italy sun, wind and water- forms of renewable energy
Greece – Recycling
Lithuania – recycling / compost
Cyprus – sewage
Belgium – airport
We talked about having students correspond with each other until the meeting in Belgium. It was suggested that we have the students who will be attending the meeting begin this correspondence.
We also talked of starting a forum or blog space for the students. We left it off at discussing it further in Belgium.
We also said that once Kathy sets up the website and we will link back to our school’s sites where we will have a presentation of the project.
We decided to prepare some lesson plans on the first two block themes – Planet Earth and Urban areas and send them to me by the end of October.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 15th
We visited the Centre of Environmental Education and played games used to unite teams and used as icebreakers.
We were shown PPT presentations of the mountain range Taygetos and of the catastrophic fires which burnt in the Peloponnesus in August 2007
We also continued discussion of the evaluation questionnaire. It was finally decided that there would be 20 general questions and 2 -5 for each of our schools that deal with local environmental issues.
We talked of presenting Agenda 21 to our students- not the whole text just the parts that are relevant to each of our block themes. We said that at the end of each block we would give the students parts of the Agenda that refer to our work and have them write their own proposals. We will also talk of the Kyoto Protocol.
We conversed of the creation of field lesson plans that we can all create, exchange and use. We will need to have at least three – five similar /identical lessons plans to work outside the classroom. These lesson plans should all be sent to me by the end of 31 October/ 1st of November.
We also chatted about which countries would be better hosting from a financial point of view and various ways that we can save money.
The second meeting is to be held in BELGIUM from January 25th to January 31st. All partners should make an attempt to arrive on the 25th so that we can begin work on Monday the 26th.
The 3rd meeting à to be held in SPAIN May 10th – May 16th 2009.
The host country should send an invitation and a rough programme for the meeting. Also the host country will decide how many students it can accommodate and inform the others. Usually two students are taken to the meetings. The countries hosting will need to bring more so as to meet mobility requirements as stated on the application.
We also discussed possible host countries for the year 2009-2010: Italy, U.K, Estonia.
Discussion of administrative and financial procedures.
Each school coordinator should ask their agency.
If the mobilities are to be 12 each year or if the 24 required are simply within the two year period.
If the mobilities have a minimum – maximum amount of days (duration)
What receipts they need to have.
If the heads of each school can take part. If not can they ask for money for a school visit.
Please remember that certain actions are decentralized and therefore different for each country. Boarding passes and Confirmation of attendance letters are required by all countries.
Creation of the web site
The website for our project will be created by the British school. The Polish school will add an e-learning site that we can all use to upload news, photos, lesson plans, etc. Kathy (British team) may also put together a video for the end of the project if we all provide her with small clips.
Discussion of topic themes
We started discussion of our theme blocks. I gave you a sample lesson plans and I will send more by the end of the month. I will also send the cartoons and passages and quotes for the sample lesson plan. We discussed presentation of the themes and how we will present them.
Evaluation
We spoke of formative evaluation to be held at the meeting in Belgium. We also decided to have questionnaires that will test students’ knowledge at the beginning and at the end of the project as part of the summative evaluation.
Also we are to send any questions we would like to include in the evaluation. I will send more questionnaire questions- with the answers to everyone by the end of the month.
TUESDAY OCTOBER 14th
We continued discussion of our block themes. We decided that
Students will be presenting at the meetings.
The presentation should be no longer than 10 minutes each.
The presentation will be on two different days- five partners each day.
The presentation may be in any form each partners wants.
Each of us will present the following.
U.K - sustainable food
Estonia - Sea / forest or fishing
Poland – the influence of the forest on European ecosystems or organic food
Spain – sustainability
Bulgaria - Biodiversity in their area- endangered species
Italy sun, wind and water- forms of renewable energy
Greece – Recycling
Lithuania – recycling / compost
Cyprus – sewage
Belgium – airport
We talked about having students correspond with each other until the meeting in Belgium. It was suggested that we have the students who will be attending the meeting begin this correspondence.
We also talked of starting a forum or blog space for the students. We left it off at discussing it further in Belgium.
We also said that once Kathy sets up the website and we will link back to our school’s sites where we will have a presentation of the project.
We decided to prepare some lesson plans on the first two block themes – Planet Earth and Urban areas and send them to me by the end of October.
WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 15th
We visited the Centre of Environmental Education and played games used to unite teams and used as icebreakers.
We were shown PPT presentations of the mountain range Taygetos and of the catastrophic fires which burnt in the Peloponnesus in August 2007
We also continued discussion of the evaluation questionnaire. It was finally decided that there would be 20 general questions and 2 -5 for each of our schools that deal with local environmental issues.
We talked of presenting Agenda 21 to our students- not the whole text just the parts that are relevant to each of our block themes. We said that at the end of each block we would give the students parts of the Agenda that refer to our work and have them write their own proposals. We will also talk of the Kyoto Protocol.
We conversed of the creation of field lesson plans that we can all create, exchange and use. We will need to have at least three – five similar /identical lessons plans to work outside the classroom. These lesson plans should all be sent to me by the end of 31 October/ 1st of November.
We also chatted about which countries would be better hosting from a financial point of view and various ways that we can save money.
