On the 15th of November 2019 our Europia team prepared and presented the Vegan day. This was a chance to present the Cretan cuisine in our school, a cuisine full of herbs and greens. The team prepared the traditional Cretan barley rusks with fresh tomatoes and olives, oregano and olive oil. They also offered to their schoolmates fresh small herb pies, a vegan chocolate cake and a traditional apple pie, presenting at the same time the recipes. This day was an opportunity for our school community and for the families of our students to reduce their ecological footprint on the earth
WELCOME DAY
The main goal of our European program was a day dedicated to the refugee students of each school and at the same time a day of tolerance for diversity. The workshop of our school consisted of two parts.
In the first part on 18/12/2019, students undertook to inform their schoolmates about the refugee issue and in this way to raise the awareness of the school community about this sensitive social group that exists in every place of our country. The briefing was about numbers and stories from people who lived the adventure of their lives, until they reached a port or a place of peace.
The second part was held during the “love day”, a celebration which is organised every year by the Cultural Association of our city, in order to raise funds for refugees and immigrants, but also for every vulnerable group in our society. Our students collected books, toys and items that are no longer needed and sold them in a bazzar. The money they earned from the bazaar of love was handed over to the Cultural Association and, consequently, to people in need.
The students who participated in the activities did their best to make this effort a success and to gather as much money as possible for the citizens of our place, who arrived in our town in distress and despair, hoping for a better life. This way our students became an example for the youngest students of our city, teaching them the way to become active citizens by offering their love to people in need.
RECYCLING DAY
As part of the study of the 17 Sdgs through the “EUROPIA” programme, we declared the 19th of February 2020 as the “day of recycling”. Our students made a poster for recycling on a piece of cardboard, by placing the lids of the water bottles they use at school, making the recycling sign. A second poster was placed on the board of our environmental team, created by the student Sideri Dimitra. On this day, the students also made boxes for recycling and placed them in each classroom. Some students then took on the responsibility of the often emptying the recycling bins of each class into the large plastic, paper and aluminum recycling bin located in the schoolyard. In this way all the students of the school, after being informed by our environmental team about the benefits of recycling, agreed to participate in this effort and to contribute as active citizens.
PLASTIC FREE DAY
January 15, 2020 was chosen by all the partners of Europia team (schools from France, Romania, Italy, Portugal, Germany and Greece) as a day dedicated to the clean environment and to a free of plastic school. For this purpose, the students Maria Brokou and Katerina Charalampaki undertook the creation of a poster, while students Vassilis Karalis and Bekiaris Ioannis created a short video, in order to explain how destructive plastic is for the environment and at the same time to make the Plastic Free Day known to all the students of the school. The contribution of the whole environmental team was important as they encouraged all the students to bring every day their personal bottle of water instead of buying every day a plastic bottle of water from the school canteen. We were surprised by the success of this action. During the Plastic Free day, all students avoided the use of plastic bottles, plastic canes and plastic cups. The relevant action also became known to their families, so that day each family tried to use only cloth bags instead of plastic in its markets. As our students informed us that became a habit in many homes.
PLANTING DAY
On March 2019 the 2nd mobility of our Erasmus project took place. All partners visited Crete and one of our activities was to put some plants and the flags of each country in the garden of our school and name it the “Europia” Garden.
On the Planting Day (one of the sustainable days) we were planning with our students to add some new plants in our “Europia” garden and make it bigger. Besides, during the ICT lesson our students created a robot that they were going to program, so that it would inform us whenever our plants needed to be watered, by using a humidity sensor.
Our Robot
Unfortunately, covid-19 prevents us from completing our plans. So, we have decided to buy one plant and one pot for each student that participates in our Erasmus project. Each student will place the plant in the pot and will put a flag that we have formerly printed ,with the sign of Europia, on it.
Firstly, this way our students will remember how important plants are in our lives and secondly they will be responsible for these plants. Besides, they will never forget being part of our Erasmus project : “EUROPIA, Building New European Dreams”.
