History and culture are two elements that help nations keep their identities and connection with the past and future generations. The Erasmus+ project, SOS- Sustain Our Souls is also about connecting people over time and helping young generation understand the importance of all these aspects. The mobility in Poland had helped the participants from Drei-Burgen-Schule, Felsberg, Germany; 1 Epal Trikalon, Trikala, Greece; IES Terra de Xallas, Santa Comba, Spain, Instituto d’Istruzione Secondaria Superiore ”Augusto Righi”, Taranto, Italy; 42 Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. A. Mickiewicza w Krakowie, Cracovia, Polond and Arts High School ”Ionel Perlea”, Slobozia, Ialomita, Romania to get in touch with different cultural elements that are representative for their countries.
Before the mobility, every delegation had to prepare materials about important historical places, natural places and inventions from their countries. Once in Poland, the delegations presented their materials in front of the others. How do you make students focus and listen to so much material? Simple…You divide them in international teams and assign them an important task: watch the presentations, take notes and make questions to be used in an international Kahoot game about the participant countries. The atmosphere was great seeing all these young people focusing on the information delivered during the 2 hours of presentations and taking notes. But the greatest aspect was seeing them working together and selecting the information they had in order to create multiple choice Kahoot questions. Once this step was completed, the next step was to be taken and that was the creation of the Kahoot game. So, one representative from each international team got together with the others and introduced the data in the computer. Then, the fun part started as the participants had to play the game against the other teams.
The international work continued in the next days as the delegations visited important places in Krakow and listened to the explanations given by the guides. They visited the Auschwitz Camp, the Ethnographical Museum, The Jewish Quarter, the Museum of Engineering and the History Museum and got a better understanding of the Polish culture as well as making comparisons with their own culture and history. The students learnt and exercised how the listen actively and how to address questions which are relevant to the topics of the project. Back to school, they worked in multinational teams in order to create posters to illustrate different aspects of the mobility, focusing on the cultural, educational and historical information they had been given and they had discovered during their documentation trips.
Mark Andrei Costache : ” The whole Erasmus+ experience was a complete win in terms of knowledge and teamwork abilities. We honed our communication skills by taking part in different activities. One of them being a Kahoot! Game where we got paired in multi-national teams, there we learned about the culture and traditions of the participating teams and put our minds together to create questions based on the knowledge acquired. It was one of the best things that happened in my life and the atmosphere was magic.”
Raluca Andreea Cirlan Petcu: ”The Erasmus+ „Sustain Our Souls” project was one of the most interesting experiences I have ever had. Besides the fact that I had the opportunity to learn more about not only the Polish culture, but also about the European one, I also met a lot of great people from many countries. Krakow is one of the richest cities in Europe as for the cultural heritage and one can see that wherever he/she goes. The workshops themselves were also really interesting, since we got to discover a lot of of things about the culture, history and evolution of technology of the other countries that participated in the „Going back to Our Roots” mobility by creating and playing a Kahoot! game. To sum up, I believe that the Erasmus+ Project gave me a whole new perspective on the world. It was truly a unique and unforgettable experience.”
At the end of the five days, the Romanian delegation was left with wonderful memories, new friends, and new points of view about the importance of life, values, traditions, culture, respect and responsibility. We believe projects such as Erasmus+ are the key to successful students as they put their teamwork skills into practice and also learned more about themselves and how to break a language barrier and deliver a compelling product. The Erasmus + projects are about evolving and exploring new spaces, are about moving barriers so that all participants fully understand that they are the future European citizens who will make their contribution to the European culture and heritage.