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1. Description of Our Team
Our team consists of 4 students: Roxana, Tibi, Andreea and Andrei. Each of us has different abilities in different fields, we are like diversity itself. For instance, Tibi was in charge of the website's design and construction, as he is keen on this IT part. Roxana, who is part of a bilingual class, helped us translate the information from Romanian into English. Andrei and Andreea, as active participants of the project, edited its content. We perceived this contest as a great opportunity to share our experience with you. Given the fact that our skills were known from the start, it was easier to go share the tasks.We really appreciate our coordinators' support, our teachers Ms.Sorina Danciu and Mrs.Catalin Macovei. Mr. Catalin Macovei provided the theoretical background and was the link with the school headmaster and the local community officialties. Ms. Sorina Danciu helped us get online, encouraged to participate in this project, and advised on the project content outline.
2. Summary of Our Project
“EcoJunior” is one of the most interesting extracurricular projects initiated so far by our school, as it promotes environment protection by presenting the negative aspects of pollution. It is a great way to keep students up-to-date in this global concern and make them able to deal with this phenomenon through different methods. The project does not restrict only to providing information, but it also gets students used with teamwork, making them develop organizational skills. We consider it an up-to-date subject, as it aims at problems which youngsters nowadays will face in the near future and which they will find easier to tackle with this ecology-related knowledge. The purpose of this kind of activities is to inform, to raise awareness and give responsibilities to a large number of young people and adults from the community regarding the present difficulties which the natural balance of our planet faces. Another significant aspect approached by our project consists of tackling with certain critical situations from the local and regional areas, realized with diverse methods of dissemination like essay sessions, suggestive flyers with pictures and stimulus associated to ecological disasters. One of the most important end products of the project is the Info Point page in which young people like us can get theoretical background, practical work and field trip hands on experience on what is going on with our environment and what we should do in order to protect it and hand over a green planet to the future generation.
3. Our Computer and Internet Access
A. Percentage of students using the Internet at home:more than 50%
B. Number of workstations with Internet access in the classroom:2-3
C. Connection speed used in the classroom:dial-up modem
D. Number of years our classroom has been connected to the Internet:1
4. Problems We Had To Overcome
As it is widely known, humanity's biggest problem is the lack of time, which we obviously also encountered. It was a real challenge for us to make our meetings possible in the limited amount of free time we have. Technology helped us overcome this barrier, as we were able to communicate and work on the project by using the Internet. Synthesizing the medley of ideas ceaselessly coming from each member of the team was also tricky, but we eventually managed to organize the information in a unitary and coherent project.
5. Our Project Sound Bite
The aim of our project is to go out there in the world and show that there is still hope for a green planet for the generations to come. With the means of modern technology, showing visual images of natural disasters and examples of good practice, we want to make people go back to nature, breath clean air, plant trees, clean green areas and then go back online and share their experience, pass on the ever green light of life on Earth. Our own soundbites say it all: Tibi’s Alis grave nil – Nothing is heavy for those who have wings; Andreea’s If there is will, there is a way; Andrei’s : Do everything so that your thoughts and wishes correspond to reality and Roxana’s Be yourself the change you want to see in the world- are all our project’s message: If we have the will and necessary wings or means and have an objective view on reality, then we should embody the green world we want to live in, start with ourselves, start from today.
6. How did your activities and research for this Doors to Diplomacy Project support standards, required coursework and curriculum standards?
The young participants in this project have been familiarized, both in practice and in theory, with the problems caused by an inadequate ecological education. First of all, our coordinators aimed at raising awareness towards environmental issues, but at the same time they strived for the involvement of students in solving these problems.The project idea started as a small project work at the Geography classes. In this activity , we managed to harmoniously combine formal methods (presenting the theoretical concepts) with non-formal methods, which taught students what real team-work is and helped form the basis for new future leaders. The young participants in this project eventually became aware of the importance of the practical activities alongside theoretical concepts in the complex process of learning. Now, due to the fact that the students have these two perspectives , they can choose between a completely theoretical educational system or the “re-shaping” of the old system into one that involves the students more with the contribution of non-formal teaching methods, games or free discussions etc. The internet was an essential element in developing the project as you see it now. We’ve found countless websites that suited our ecology themes, but we did not limit our research to the Internet. We constantly pursued to back up the relevant information found by consulting a variety of books. Although the internet offered limitless information at the simple touch of a button, our past experience taught us to efficiently gather evidence by balancing the virtual resources with the tangible ones.
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