The project description

This project is aimed at cosmopolitan awareness of the natural treasure and heritage, its variety and common features and characteristics. Through participation in this project, we wish to encourage cooperation and intercultural communication and strengthen the sense of European citizenship based on understanding and respect for other people and their environment. Pupils will become more open-minded and interested in other cultures and their natural environment and its protection through the experiences gained in the project.

The subject of this project are national parks in completely different countries and climatic zones and it will have following basic topics which the students and teachers will deal with and include into the final products:

geological processes; description of flora, fauna, typical for the exact area; comparing ways of nature protection in different countries and laws; possibilities of economical and agricultural use; digital photos, facebook profiles, communication, excel work (charts, graphs ); average values, statistics - graphs constructions, charts; localisation in the world, maps, class into climatic zones; reasons and rarities - why it is a national park, its definition and significance, chemical composition, process, formulas; languages - translation of the texts.

The students should be involved in different activities and work on the final outputs. As the partners are from Norway, Canary Islands, Italy - Sicily and the Czech Republic, we will concentrate on the most significant national parks in these countries.

The students will explore what they have common (from a point of view of natural history, geology, fauna, flora, environmental protection, legislation, economical and agricultural use, climate, localization etc.).

We are going to follow the period through the geological processes till the contemporary form. Each country has several national parks with their typical features and characteristic, uniqueness and rarities. Some of them are similar and some of them are completely different and unique. The students with their teachers will explore the parks in theory but in practice by real fieldwork during the stay in a foreign country. They will work in teams, which will have specific assignments. Each team should trace the information (internet, encyclopaedias, textbooks etc.) and explore the parks from above mentioned assignments.

All these activities will result in the main (a guidebook through national parks) and some minor outputs. There should be made documents with the brief summary where the similarities and dissimilarities will be highlighted (charts, graphs, statistics, chemical composition, maps and localization, average values, environment protection and laws, flora and fauna, minerals, rarities etc.) and Power Point presentations with own legends, photos and pictures. Students will make a simple dictionary with the vocabulary which has connection to the national parks and what we can find there. This dictionary will be in English and the other partner languages and if necessary in Latin. Finally the students will invent their own definitions of national parks and their significance.

All the results should be summed up in the guidebook. Everything will be translated from the native languages into English and vice versa. The inseparable part of the guidebook will be photos with legends taken and done by students. They will practise their ICT skills which will result into final graphic and pictorial shape.

The main target group of this project are students. All our activities are student-oriented and can be only accomplished with their participation. The activities enable them to gain new knowledge and skills and practise them. The young people could see their countryside variances as well as many similarities which they can find in their natural environment and attitude to it, languages and also in national habits. They will learn new things; cooperate together without the difference from which country they are or which skills they have. They will produce a great variety of outputs which are planned to be done by an interesting and funny way. The other group is made by teachers who will be students´ supporters and they will help them with all the activities. The teachers provide a guarantee that the project will proceed smoothly and its results will be sustained and used after project finishing.

This project must be carried transnationally through the fieldwork because it is based on comparing of different landscapes and their evolution. Without this possibility the project would lose its significance.

The importance of this project resides into the awareness of surrounding nature significance and necessity to protect it as a worldwide heritage and treasure. It is important to young people to realize their responsibility for the future of the following generations including their children. Protection of our environment and nature is also in their hands.