Protection of Biodiversity
Comenius Project 2012-2014

September 2012- students and teachers were informed about  our school’s Comenius Project:  the topic of the project, its contents, division of tasks and how we would  cooperate.

October 2012- students were divided into groups and wrote an outline of how they were going to work, what topic regarding the protection of biodiversity they were interested in and what presentation they were going to make.

November 2012 – teachers met in Cologne, Germany for the first project meeting. During the meeting the plan of cooperation and division of tasks was elaborated in detail. Teachers compared teaching methods and facilities. Teachers watched biodiversity presentations by the German students, had a tour of the school and were informed about the status of the local environment and recent history of the city.

October – November 2012- teachers chose students who would go to Istanbul and worked with students to help them prepare the presentations on endangered species in Poland and other countries.  Students signed up on twin space and began corresponding with other students from partner schools.  Teachers corresponded with partner schools about criteria for presentations and for arranging host families for the Istanbul visit. Students began corresponding with their Turkish host student.  Students began corresponding with their Istanbul working group members. Close coordination between partner schools was very important in order to ensure the success of the first meeting in February.

February 2013- project meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. Students met their host student, had a tour of Cent High School.  The Polish group presented their project on ants.  Other teachers commented that it was one of the most creative and commended it for being an excellent, creative presentation of the facts with occasional  humourous moments which kept the audience’s attention and made the presentation fun as well as instructive.  Students worked in multi-national groups doing research and preparing new projects on endangered species.  Teachers met and made plans for the meeting in Italy.  Students and teachers visited Haghia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, the Grand Bazaar, Taksim Square.  They sampled Istanbul traffic jams and Turkish food with their host families, at the school, and on outings.  The host families loved our students and didn’t want them to go back to Poland.

March 2013- (presentation of the February trip to Istanbul to all the Comenius students.  Selection of the best pieces of work according to specified criteria.

March –May 2013- dissemination of the best pieces of work among participants.

May 2013- project meeting in Cagliari, Italy, lots of activities devoted to the protection of biodiversity in the Sardinian environment, specifically guided walks with worksheets of the Molentargius Saline Works, and the Marine Park Capo Carbonara including some local lagoons, a boat trip around Capo Carbonara from Villasimius, the Environmental Education Center Laguna di Nora and its Aquarium, Cetacean Gallery and Recovery Center for Cetaceans and Sea Turtles and the Nora archaeological site as well as a guided tour of Cagliari including the archeology museum.  The Polish group showed their presentation about the eco-systems of Polish forests.  At the end of the meeting students worked on new presentations in mixed international groups;  the presentations summed up all the activities in which they had participated during the meeting in Sardinia.  Teachers discussed the September meeting in Poland, finalized dates and discussed numbers of students and transportation and agreed that students would make short presentations about their country or city.  

September 2012- June 2013- web sites were created and information about the project activities was disseminated.  The projects’ findings to date are on the following webpages:

a) http://humboldt-koeln.de/schulleben/projekte/comenius/

b) http://new-twinspace.etwinning.net/web/p89603/welcome

c) http://www.probiocomenius.eu/

d) http://humboldt-koeln.de/schulleben/projekte/comenius/comenius-2013/