Celebrating the day of

1st December 2017 – “HIV / AIDS international day”

In collaboration with our Biology teacher, around 30 students designed and painted posters which were mounted on walls around the school building. At the same time, the students were giving red ribbons to the students to raise sensitivity and awareness.

9^th May 2018 – “Europe-day”

Around 50 students aged 16 gathered at the computer lab. Teachers introduced EU today, EU’s institutions, EU’s facts, EU’s decision making and challenges that Europe faces today. After a short discussion, students were split in four groups according to four different subjects :

• education-culture
• economy-environment,
• politics-democracy-freedom of mass media and speech
• immigration

Each student had to research, to study, to think and to form an opinion about Europe’s attitude and actions on the specific subject. Each group in turn, was later split into two, the cons and the pros. The two groups then had a debate based on arguments.  The debate was followed by a brief discussion and result deduction involving all students.

9th February 2018 – “Understanding  Biodiversity”

A few weeks before the German mobility, in order to better prepare for the mobility and learn more on its main topic, biodiversity, we invited in our school, Petros Lymperakis an expert from the Natural History Museum of Crete in Herakleion, to present and explain to us the phenomenon of biodiversity. Around 40 students participated.

In addition to this lecture, we as a group decided to gather and bring together in our next meeting herbs that Cretan land offers in plentiness and high quality. Mixing all, we created a mix of Greek herbs, which anyone can use as a drink both disease healing purposes as well as for the joy of its rich scents.

International Women´s day at the GCLS

„Women-the intelligent gender?“ This controversial question was posed in the occasion of our first „Lichtenbergsalon“ in 2019. First, Mrs. Prof. Dr. Ursula Kessels gave us a lecture concerning facts and figures around our current school system in which gender stereotypes are still prevalent and hinder people from judging others neutrally. Subsequently, students, teachers and other participants revealed their personal experiences and ideas for a fairer system in which students are not primarily regarded and evaluated because of their inherent sex but in which they are all regarded neutrally and equally fair. It was intriguing to see how everyone participated and enjoyed to take part in the debate. Being a part of our school, the „GCLS“, means to share personal opinions, to include personal experiences and to talk to each other to become more conscious of current problems. We already look forward to participating in the next event in this beautiful atmosphere!

Jessica from Erasmus+

Celebrating the HIV/AIDS Day

We chose  the 1^st December as date for celebrating the HIV/AIDS Day . In our lessons  the Erasmus+ group was asked  to work out a questionnaire to be filled on line by any student in the school; the purpose was to test  the young people’s knowledge on the subject; the results were in fact to be  submitted  to the experts invited to take part in the meeting . We also asked our Science colleagues to dedicate some lessons on the subject in preparation for that day.

The Erasmus + students also created a leather red ribbon to be purchased and worn at the meeting; the money collected would be donated for scientific research on HIV; our students also made a colourful carton box which would contain anonymous questions about the subject to which the experts would answer at the meeting in the big hall of the school.

On the celebration day a group of our students set up a stall in the school courtyard where  everybody was invited to make a donation and get a red ribbon to wear; here they also distributed some leaflets encouraging to have the HIV test done

Experts, doctors and psychologists were invited  to intervene and hold a lecture where they provided scientific information and illustrated some cases presenting the real experiences of people affected by HIV. The lecture was concluded by an interactive moment when these experts chose some of the anonymous questions from the box and gave answers.

Celebrating the Day of Europe

To  celebrate  Europe-Day we organized   a meeting-lecture Lesson Plan on EU involving almost all  the third-classes ( 16 years of age) of the school . These were invited to the big hall to reflect on and share ideas with us about  the important role that the European Union has in promoting and defending the human rights and the principles of democracy; this meeting was also an occasion to discuss about the opportunities that the European Union offers to all citizens and above all to the young. Beforehand we had lessons with the Erasmus + group where we shared opinions about the advantages provided by the EU and in our specific case by the Erasmus+ project. Later we invited the Erasmus + students to prepare a questionnaire about the EU Test on EU Italian version which was distributed to all the  third-classes invited and whose purpose was to see how much the young know about the EU and its institutions; besides this, our students also prepared a Prezi presentation containing all basic information which was shown on the celebration day.

For that day we decided to wear something yellow and blue and we  decorated the hall with yellow and blue balloons and a poster showing Europe before and after  the creation of the Union

The ceremony started with the performance of the school choir singing the Ode to Joy . Soon after some students from the Erasmus+  group showed their presentation and we all discussedabout the  advantages of being members of the EU. Finally the students from the Erasmus+ group talked about their involvement in the project by showingpictures  of the two mobilities in Germany and Greece.

The whole ceremony was handled by the Erasmus+ group because we wanted them to feel the real  protagonists and  pass on to the other students their enthusiasm about feeling part of one community

Europe Day in Our School – 9^th May

To celebrate Europe Day, students and teachers from the Erasmus + project team organised two activities on the 9^th May 2018. Working in two teams, we managed to bring children from our school together and to have fun.

One of the activities was a drawing and painting contest entitled “Unity in Diversity”, meant to represent variety and diversity through art. All the students from our school were encouraged to participate and we are proud that a lot of them did show their creativity and talent. Their works are part of a permanent exhibition in our school dedicated to the celebration of European values.

The second activity was a very dynamic Treasure Hunt. The whole idea of this was to create four different routes in order to represent the four participating countries of the Erasmus+ project: Germany, Italy, Greece and Romania. Each route was paved with QR codes that participants had to scan with their phones, so that they would be sent to another clue. From time to time questions would pop up to also widen the students’ general knowledge about European countries, culture and history. At the end of the Treasure Hunt the students arrived to rooms decorated with flags of the chosen countries. As we couldn’t exclude European cuisine either, the exhausted participants were greeted with the traditional dishes of our countries, which was a huge success and everything was eaten up in a matter of seconds.