Let’s explore the issue of climate change
About a year ago, Rolands Ozols, Deputy Head for Educational Affairs at Riga Jugla Secondary School, initiated a mobility project on an issue of great relevance in recent years: climate change. The idea behind a joint project with Tartu Tamme Gümnaasium was to systematise and reinforce the collaboration already existing.
Debunking myths
The question also familiar to pupils of inevitable global climate change has become associated with various myths. Both schools had desire to look at these myths from a rational perspective while mastering working with data and identifying the prevailing views. “I believe that the main value of projects of this kind is to gain personal experience with a variety of issues. Only in very few cases projects like this produce an outcome that is worth disseminating more broadly. Generally such projects are geared towards their participants, in this case the pupils themselves,” says Rolands Ozols, the project leader.
An interactive contribution
To make sure that the project is not just a one-of effort, the pupils developed the educational content that they believed to be necessary. A list of issues to be covered was compiled, as well as two interactive games, intended to help the knowledge to be passed on to future generations in a stimulating way. It is said that the games are still being used actively after the conclusion of the project.
Around twenty pupils from Estonia and Latvia participated in the project, divided into mixed groups for subsequent activities. The project continued for one year. The pupils selected the information that was most relevant worked on it in a digital environment. Alongside this activity, there were workshops where the partiipants could learn about and analyse climate change processes. A website was set up using eTwinning software. “This was not a complete success, though, as the Estonians have much more attractive modes of communication, in which they are much more comfortable,” noted Rolands Ozols.
The process matters
Rolands Ozols found the project application form for Nordplus Junior software straightforward and comprehensible: objectives, tasks, assessment criteria, publicity. “I had no difficulty writing up this project, and the entire reporting after the project had concluded was the simplest I can remember anywhere,” Ozols sums up. Everything happened online. “On my visits with colleagues, I have been saying that I have not seen management software this simple for years. The process and the activities are what matters the most, not the documentation. At any rate, it is also a very good financial tool for collaboration with Nordic countries, as well as our neighbours.”
Project contact
Riga Jugla Secondary School Upper secondary school - www.rjv.lv
Project leader Rolands Ozols