EUtopia description

We are currently living in an era of accelerated change in Europe that concerns not only technological developments, but also society on the whole. As a consequence, the skills and competences needed for work and life in the 21st century are continuously evolving. In our current society most of our students need to be equipped with useful skills in order to face their professional future in their own or foreign country. Bridging the gap between their reality and the current European vision will be essential in developing new skills for their competence development and the planning of future competence requirements. 

European policy is reacting towards these changes  by the Europe 2020 strategy that brings  together the economic, social and environmental agendas of the EU in a more structured and coherent way.

With EUtopia we aim to connect the objectives of Europe 2020 in education to focus on the development of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning.

The main objective of our project is that our students work, understand and try to collaborate in achieving the objectives of the european policies with a project through a comparison between all partner countries, so this work could be reflected in the production of a collaborative documentary expressing their views on the problems of European society. We will create  a methodology that will be implemented in activities designed on each of the topics of EUtopia. One part will be e-learning (mail, e-twinning, web, skype, etc) and the rest will be done face-to-face at each of the meetings through workshops, seminars, roundtable discussions or academic training. Its implementation will help to improve our basic competencies: communication in the foreign languages, digital competence, learning to learn,  interpersonal, intercultural,social and civic competences,  sense of initiative and entrepreneurship and also cultural expression. 

Students  will try to define their own situation and look for solutions in their countries and then put them together with other partners through transnational meetings. The challenge is that they can think about themselves and learn from what happens in other countries with regard to recognize the common elements and characteristics of the topics of the project.

Each country has a main topic and will be responsible for preparing the meeting in which we will share the ideas of all members, show the work previously done by the participating students and produce their part of the  final documentary. 

One of the key concepts of the project is that the students develop their own questions on the topic. They have to plan, execute and evaluate their work themselves. This enables them to take ownership of the research and learning process thus fostering their self-confidence.

By working on the EUtopia project the students will become aware that they are not alone, that they can count on someone in their school who can help them. And as they will discover that their situation is similar to that in other countries, they will realize that problems that affect their lives are quite common. Consequently they may find out that other teenagers and students of  their same age have their same problems and how those problems have been solved in other countries.

EUtopia as a whole has a strong social purpose, and although each country specializes in a different topic, we want to find effective solutions for students who have difficulties to continue their studies for any reason (social, economic, motivational, physical...).

Italy, Spain and Turkey will specialize in social issues affecting these students: problems of social exclusion, the high level of immigration in some schools or premature dropout and its consequences.

Greece and Poland will be responsible for specific work education and its challenge, dropping out of school serves as a potential problem both for the individual and society and ICT can remove the barriers that are causing the problems of low rate of education in any country.

Latvia will be responsible for the environmental and health objectives. Young generations need to be conscious about their health and thus, future. This project will raise the awareness of the young students from different parts of Europe in terms of two important issues for being healthy: sports and nutrition.

To end the partnership as a main result we will obtain an artistic and social documentary that will show how students from all over Europe contribute with their ideas and actions to improve European policies and how working collaboratively they can develop personally and professionally for their future together. We have proposed a blended learning (partly e-learning and partly face to face) and the distribution and marketing plans that will ensure the sustainability of the results of EUtopia, pointing to the development and evaluation of cross curricular skills and the social recognition of these unregulated studies.