Protection of Biodiversity
Comenius Project 2012-2014
Comenius Project: Protecting Biodiversity
5-10 November 2012 Köln Meeting Notes
Present:
Coordinators: Mario Kremper (Köln; Spanish, Biology), Mario.Kremper@gmx.de
Domenico (Mimo) Ripa (Cagliari; Spanish) domenico.ripa@istruzione.it
mimmoripa@gmail.com (0039 34 544 90599)
Participants:
Dr. Harald Junge, Headmaster, Alexander Humboldt Gymnasium, Köln
Tim Gockel (Köln; Biology) timotheusgockel@gmail.com
Agatha (Köln; English, Psychology)
Carolin Miller (Köln; English, Spanish)
Isabelle Z (Köln; Biology, Fine Arts)
Paula (Köln; Spanish)
Rafael Martin Villa (Madrid Coordinator; Biology) rafamartinvilla@gmail.com Jefe de Estudios. IES
SAN ISIDRO C/ Toledo, nº 39. 28005. Madrid Telf: 91 3651271
M. Patrizia Tagliaferri (Cagliari; English) mptagliaferri@alice.it (0039 338 841 7731)
Jolanta (Jola) Prodanowska (Tarnow Coordinator; English) jolaprod@op.pl
Dorota Boryczko (Tarnow; English) dor.bor@wp.pl
Deborah Abbott (Istanbul; English) debabbott2000@yahoo.com (0090 537 434 3931)
· Our host school: Alexander von Humboldt Gymnasium:
Alexander von Humboldt: 18th century anti-slavery campaigner, educator, philosopher
1250 students, 120 teachers, 50 music teachers in attached music conservatory
Public school (ages 11-19)
Have had several Comenius projects, often with Italy.
The school won a prize by submitting their last project (Multicultural societies) to the country’s agency. They won 2000 euros and got to go to Brussels. Prize money was used to buy technology for biology lab.
Final meeting in 2014 will be in Koln at the same time as school’s international festival
The headmaster, Dr. Harald Junge, attributes great importance to international projects.
He is a politician, the head of the Green Party in Koln and is proud of successful efforts to clean the local environment.
· Logo: Students in Köln are preparing the project logo along with their art teacher. It is circular, representing the cycle of life and hopes for never-ending diversity. It will include the word “Biodiversity” in different languages and the years of the project. Each student did one black and white drawing of a plant or animal drawn from the world, not just Germany. Eventually, they hope to include Latin names, graphical diversity, and complete the project as an etching. They may print t-shirts.
· Rafael suggested that we incorporate QR codes (Quick Response codes used by Smartphones). Using i-nigma (a free application) one can create a QR code.
· What partner schools are doing:
Köln: About 30 students are working in a school forest outside the city. They meet once a week during their free time, not during class time. As part of their project, they will begin projects to help bees. They hope to have bees established in their forest and on the rooftop of the school buildings within two years.
Cagliari: Biology is studied in years 1 and 2, but not in the 3rd year. They have included 4 classes of approximately 25 students, not all of whom will participate. Perhaps 30 will participate. They will work on choosing these students. They are concentrating on Maritime/sea ecosystems.
Madrid: Mediterranean forests.
Istanbul: Urban landscapes
· Mario Kremper noted that the common projects should be animals/plants in danger of extinction; but that students getting to know each other and communicate with each other is more important than biology.
He also has recommended that in a later step we all study the issue of the decline in the world bee population (a parasite is killing them). In China, workers are manually fertilizing crops.
His students will be going to see a film that has just come out about this problem. One of his groups presented this problem. I videoed it but will wait until we have permission from his students’ parents to watch it.
What students will do now and in February:
· Until February, students will work in Twinspace; write their profiles; post their species presentations; read and comment (positively) on others’ presentations
· On Thursday 15th our students need to come up with a list of 10 questions for other students to answer in their TwinSpace profiles. These questions shouldn’t be too personal. Students are not obliged to answer these questions and can write about other topics that interest them; these questions are just intended to get things started. Some questions should be about the project and biology. (Example: Who’s your favorite singer? How old are you? Why are you participating in this project? What interests you about biology? Etc.) On Friday, November 16th we will send this list to all the teachers to use with their students.
· In the following week (November 19-23) all students will register on TwinSpace (if they haven’t already) and write their profiles on TwinSpace. By December 1st, all profiles should be complete.
· Then – each of our students should prepare a presentation on one of the following (a species which is endangered in Turkey) according to the criteria Mario e-mailed earlier and as we saw his students present. Either:
1) Insect
2) Mammal
3) Plant
4) Bird
5) Sea life
Our students should be evenly divided into these groups.
They will upload their presentations onto TwinSpace on or before January 25th.
· After they have uploaded them, they should read each others and our project partners’ students presentations. They should read half of the total number presentations and make positive comments on 8 of them so that all presentations have been commented upon.
In February teachers’ work:
· Mario will bring the mid-project, end of first year, evaluation forms to fill out and we will do part of it together then. They are easy to fill out, mostly checklists.
We will provide link to E-twinnings site where the uploaded work is.
· We will discuss projects for students to do in Cagliari in May
· We will discuss this while students are working supervised by other teachers.
In February students’ work:
· Students will be placed into multinational groups working in the following areas (Insects, Mammals, Plants, Birds, Sealife). Each group (maximum two to a room) will have a teacher to be a presence to keep them on task, answer questions. In their groups, first, each student will present the work they previously uploaded onto TwinSpace to the group. Since they have written about it, they should be comfortable speaking about it. They can use an Open Office power point presentation or written notes. Students will then ask each other questions about the presentations and discuss.
· In the afternoon, still in the same group, they will prepare the next day’s presentation. They will have a new task of comparing the reasons why their animals/plants are threatened, endangered and finding solutions, (either to the problems of the Turkish endangered flora and fauna or possibly to another country’s) which they will present to the whole group on the next working day. They will need internet and computers for this; at least two computers in each room.
· Schools need to decide if May 13-17 is a good time for the Cagliari trip and how many students they plan to bring. Mimo will tell us what times are good for his school and how many host families they can provide.
***We have a deadline of Tuesday, November 20th to confirm these dates with Mario.
· Schools need to begin thinking of their Fall 2013 schedule and the visit to Poland (the Polish teachers have suggested the week of September 23rd but many schools think this is too early). We will set these dates in Cagliari, and the dates of trip to Madrid (Feb-March 2014) in Poland.
General Guidelines for Visits:
· Each teacher organizes hotel and flights for own school.
Planning Notes for Istanbul Visit:
· Number of students (s) and teachers (t) each of the project schools is planning to bring:
Poland 2 s 1 or 2 t
Spain 4-6 s 2 t
Italy 3-4 s 2 t
Germany 9-11 s 4 t (including headmaster)
Total 18 – 23 s 9-10 t
The Germans may decide to bring another 10 students and lodge them with a teacher in a youth hostel in Sultanahmet. They hope that these students could come to school at least one day to have the chance to see the school and our activities. On the other days they would either tour with us or visit tourist sites on their own with their teacher.
· We need to finalize our host family list. If one our student’s families does not allow them to travel this year and is not allowed to host a student this year, should they be allowed to participate? Since this is the only time for our school to host, shouldn’t all parents who hope for their child to have the chance to travel, whether this year or next, be willing to host a student in February?
· Mario will send all the teachers a form for their students to fill out (age etc.) which will help us to match up students with host families.
· Teachers will send this form to Debbie by Monday, December 3rd.
· Task work question: is it ok if after presentations, other students are charged to comment on how we can find solutions to problems faced by endangered animals/plants in Turkey.
· We will need at least 4 rooms where groups can meet. 6 (5 for students, one for teachers) would be better.
· Our partner teachers said they can not ask students to bring laptops as not all students have them and as they may be used by other family members. We need to provide laptops if necessary.
· I warned them that we do not have Power Point on our computers.
· Our guests may be flying into different airports and arriving at different times.
Mario suggested that students accompany teachers to hotel in Taksim and that parents collect them there, but I do not recommend this as tunnel construction in Taksim may make this very difficult for parents.
· I explained that we would like to offer museum entrance tickets to our guests; and that this would simplify ticket purchases.
· We will need to send an e-mail to all guests with:
· Visa requirements: Spanish and Polish citizens must have a visa. This can be purchased at the airports before getting into the passport line. The fee as of 11/2012 is $20 or 15 euros
· Information about airlines, airports, buses to taksim, taxis
· Information about Taksim hotels, ogretmen evis and Sultanahmet youth hostels
· Metro, funiculaire, tram; approximate times; Istanbulkart pre-loaded for transport
· Weather, clothing suggestions
· Country code
· Advise host families of Polish students that they are used to eating a big breakfast and lunch and little or no dinner
· Money, approximate costs of water, snacks, transport, etc.
Deadlines:
Friday November 16 : We will send a list of profile questions developed by our students to all
participants.
Saturday December 1: All students have completed profiles on TwinSpace.
Monday December 3: All partner teachers have sent forms with names and ages and other
information about students to Debbie to use in host-student matching.
December 24: Cent should have host-guests students set up so that they can begin chatting in
TwinSpace and on Facebook.
January 25 2013: All presentations loaded onto TwinSpace. Students begin reading and making
positive comments on other students’ presentations.
February 15 2013: Students have completed reading half of presentations and writing positive
comments after 8 of them.
CENT HIGH SCHOOL
2012-2013 ACADEMIC YEAR
COMENIUS PROJECT - PROTECTING BIODIVERSITY
February 18-22 Istanbul Week
Meeting Notes
February 20
Present: Mario Kremper, Mimmo Ripa, Coordinators
Köln, Germany: Tim Gockel, Carolin Miller, Dr. Harald Junge
Cagliari, Italy: Angela Testone, Patrizia Tagliaferre, Marcella Lecca
Madrid, Spain: Rafael Martin Villa, Nuria Torregimeno Benito
Tarnow, Poland: Dorota Boryczko, Malgorzata Wazna
Istanbul, Turkey: Pervin Türkmayali, Ayse Görey, Devrim Kaynar, Deborah
Abbott
1. The project website, created along with two others by the Italian students, chosen by the students assembled in Istanbul and maintained by the Italians, is probio.comenius@gmail.com
Devrim’s notes: Name of the site: probiocomenius.eu
Mail to: comenius@gmail.com
Copyright issues: No copyrighted photos may be posted on this website.
Copyrighted music mustn’t be included, or a button must be added to prevent it being downloaded.
2. We need to upload all the photos, posters, and presentations, including those new ones produced at the meeting to TwinSpace. Students must document the sources in their presentations. See copyright concerns in 1.
3. We need to get parents permission before we post any photos of students. Debbie thinks we should also have the permission of the students themselves and discuss with them what can be the consequences of having a photo with your name on it circulating on the internet.
2. Intermediate Report: Mario Kremper discussed the Intermediate Report on the project whose deadline is June. The forms were not yet available, but can be found on e-twinning or by contacting Mario. We can fill out this report in May. We should include links to etwinning and to our website. We should check to see if there are applications for prizes and/or a quality label from the EU or E-twinning.
3. Work until May: Until May, schools will work in the same groups that they will work in in Cagliari; a few from each country will work in a group. They should use their different competencies on Twin Space and in small groups. All groups will work on the Cagliari project, but only a few students from each country will go. Patrizia and Mimmo will make a list of species and places.
Two students from each school will collect information, presentations, photos etc. from the other students and send it to Mimmo for the website. Students’ deadline for sending information to Mimmo is end of February. We need to give him the names of these two students, they should be two who are going to Cagliari, by March 10.
From Mario Kremper’s meeting follow-up e-mail:
“We also decided in Istanbul that from now on, in our schools in groups the students should prepare a presentation about the three ecosystems of Cagliari: forest, marine ecosystem and marshlands.
I think it would be best,if the students concentrate on a presentation of such an ecosystem in their own country, prepare informations about typical species, biotic and abiotic conditions, endangered species and the methods of investigation.
Until the next meeting in Cagliari the students should upload their results on the twinspace (etwinning) in a wiki, where they can put all the information from the different countries together. I will set up this wiki next week.
Maybe the pupils who prepared the same ecosystem could work together the first day in Cagliari and make a multinational presentation before doing the investigations the next day.
3. Mimmo Rippa discussed the upcoming meeting in Italy:
They mean to plan outside activities as the weather will be nice. They will focus on estuaries, second, the sea. The students will work on methods to determine and find species. They will look for solutions in nature for 3-4 days and then on the last day make short presentations. Presentations could include videos.
Dates for Italy: Saturday or Sunday 11 – (17) 18 to following Saturday.
Number of Students:
Turkey: 7 students (2 boys, 5 girls)
Poland: 3
Spain: 7-8 Spain
Germany: 11-12
Total 28 - 30
We discussed hotels, bed and breakfasts, youth hostels. Our hosts will try to find a good, inexpensive hotel for us in the center.
Some students will take the train to school and so will need money for transport.
We asked if they would need any special equipment. They will think about this and let us know.
4. We discussed the dates for Poland. Monday 23rd September to Friday 27th September, arrive on 21 or 22, leave on 28th.
Comenius-Project „The Protection of Biodiversity“ (2012-2014)
Coordinator:
Humboldt-Gymnasium (Köln, Germany)
Partners:
ÖZEL CENT LİSESİ (Istanbul, Turkey)
III Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. A.Mickiewicza (Tarnów, Poland)
ITC "PIETRO MARTINI" (CAGLIARI, Italy)
IES SAN ISIDRO (Madrid, Spain)
Pre-meeting in Cologne (04.11.-10.11.2012)
Report of the first project meeting in Istanbul (18.-22.02.2013)
As the main content of the project is the investigation of the local ecosystems and the determination of the different species in all of the countries, the pupils of the different schools worked in the run-up to the meeting in groups of 2-6 members in their own schools and made investigations about species which are endangered. With this information they prepared a power-point-presentation about the respective species. The pupils had the opportunity to choose the species which they are most interested in, but the teachers made sure that in all the schools there were groups of different taxa of species, e.g. mammals, birds, insects and sea life species.
With the help of the internet plattform “etwinning” the pupils could get in contact with the other students, upload their presentations and have a look at the ones of the others.
In Istanbul has been 11 students from Germany, 4 from Italy, 7 from Spain and 2 from Poland.
They were living in Turkish families. There were also 2 Polish teachers, 4 German teachers, 2 Spanish teachers and 4 Italian teachers. All the teachers were staying together in the same hotel (Hotel Grand Star).
On the first day of the meeting all the different national groups presented their results to the whole group in English. So the pupils got an idea of the species which are endangered in the other countries and they got to know the reasons for that (e.g. extinction by neophytes, enviromental pollution, straightening of watercourses, climatic change).
After that presentation the pupils were divided into multinational groups, which means that in each group there was working a Spanish, a German, an Italian, a Turkish and a Polish student. They were formed according to the type of species which they had investigated before.
So there were formed a mammal group, a bird group, an insect group and a sea life group.
The language they used was English. They got the task to choose one species which they are most interested in. The aim than was to work out a catalogue of practical solutions, which can be put into practice in the respective ecosystems.
The pupils worked on that for two days and at the end they presented their results in English to the whole group. The presentations were also uploaded into the internet plattform “etwinning”, so that the students who didn´t come to Istanbul could get to know the solutions.
Apart from that, the Italian group presented their ideas of the layout of a project homepage. They presented three options and all the students voted for the layout they liked most.
From this moment on, all the results were documented on that homepage:
Two students of each school were choosen to collect all the results of the meeting in Istanbul and send them to the Italian group for doing the uploading of the results to the homepage.
While the pupils were working in the groups the teachers planned the next step untill the next project meeting in Cagliari in May 2013.
As one of the main goals before starting the project was the cooperation with enviromental protection organizations, the teachers decided to let the pupils make investigations in the concrete ecosystems during the meeting in Cagliari. So they decided, that the students who should go there shall in the run-up to Cagliari make investigations about these ecosystems (marine, marshland and forest).
Apart from working together the students had great excursions to the oldtown of Istanbul, were they visited the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Basilica, The Great Bazar, the Galata Tower and they made a passage across the Bosporus.
Report of the second project meeting in Cagliari (13.-17.05.2013)
In Cagliari there were working together 14 students from Germany, 7 Turkish students, 8 Spanish students and 3 Polish students. There was also 4 German teachers, 2 Polish teachers, 3 Spanish teachers and 2 Turkish teachers.
7 German students were staying in a youth hostal and the rest was living with Italian families. The teachers were living in different hotels.
On the first day of the project meeting the different national groups made their presentations aabout the different ecosystems which they had investigated. So the German groups presented the mud-flats, the Spanish group la Doñana, the Turkish group the Mediterranean sea and the Polish group the Central Europe forest ecosystem.
The next day the pupils made the first excursion to the Marine Park Capo Carbonara, where the students first made a trip by boat to have a look to the cost from the seaside.
After that they were divided into groups of 10 students and they got questionnaires, which should be filled in by the students with the information they got during the guided tour through the Marine Park. The groups were guided by biologists who explained a lot about the special biotic and abiotic conditions of this area and the specific adaptations of the species of this ecosystem acording e.g. to the very dry conditions or the high salt concentration.
The students were asked to fill in the form well because they would need the information for the last day, when they would work together in multmational groups to analize and evaluate the excursion results.
The next day the students made an excursion to the Natural Park Molentargius to work with the biologists of the park with the aim to know and observe flora and fauna of the park. It is a special ecosystem made of salinas, where the conditions are different other ecoystems of this area. The pupils received again questionnaires and formed groups. In the groups of 20 persons they walked through the park and they got a lot of information by a biologist. So the pupils e.g. got to know information about the adaptation of flamingos which live in this exosystem.
Also the students had the possibility to make an observation of these flamingos and many other bird species. The students again were asked to fill in the form correctly for including this information in the multinational group work on the last day.
The next day the students made an excursion to the Naturalistic and Archaeological Area of Nora. In Nora the students got first an guided tour through the Archaeological Area of Nora.
After that they visited the Envromental Education Center Laguna di Nora with an included visit of the Aquarium, the Cetacean Gallery and the Recovery Center of the Cetaceans and the Sea Turtles. The students got a lot of information about the different endangered species which are living in the Mediterranean sea and about the different types of threat the animals have to live with, e.g. the mass of platic waste which the animals could eat and die because of it. Apart from that, the students had the oportunity to have a look and also touch a lot of marine species like e.g. crayfish, sea urchin, sea cucumber and starfish. Also they had a look of the skeleton of whales and living fish species which normally live on the sea ground.
On the last day of the project meeting the students were working in multinational groups. Two groups were evaluating and analizing the results of the excursion to the coastal ecosystem and preparing a presentation for the others (one in Spanish and one in English) and two groups were doing the same with the results of the excursion to the salina ecosystem. They presented their power-point-presentations to the other pupils and discussed about the different results.
The presentation were uploaded to the internet plattform etwinning for giving the students who didn´t come to Cagliari the opportunity to see the results of this meeting.
Report of the Project Meeting in Tarnów, Poland ( 23.09.- 27.09.2013)
The main topic of the meeting was biodiversity of the countries participating in the project and the ways of its protection. The students and teachers worked together during various activities to share information about a variety of endangerous species characteristic of their countries and work out possible solutions of how the problems could be solved.
Students from all participating schools made detailed Power Point presentions about biodiversity in their countries, systems of education and geography of their countries. Participants of the meeting took part in the trips to the salt mine in Wieliczka, Pieniński National Park where they could see a variety of different species of plants and animals living in Poland, visited a museum which presented exhibits of unique Polish flora nad fauna, e.x. plants, birds, animals and insects . A number of activities were offered to them so that they could extend their knowledge about the participating countries, education, geography and biodiversity during which students could practice speaking foreign langauges, learn more about different countries and promote international friendship. They worked in international groups and the results were presented to a big audience of Polish students, teachers as well as guests from participating countries and later photos and presentations were uploaded on the websites. The headmaster of the German school made a presentation which he prepared especially for the Tarnów meeting about biodiversity in Koln.
Report of the fourth project meeting in Madrid (23.-28.03.2014)
COMENIUS PROGRAM
MADRID (MARCH 2014)
Suggested topics to work on winter 2013:
– Biodiversity in cities.
– Threats or negative elements that can affect biodiversity in the cities.
Program activities:
22/23 March (Saturday and Sunday)
– Teachers and students arrive to Madrid-Barajas Airport.
– Students will be picked up by the families in charge of them.
24 March (Monday)
– Reception at High School. Guided tour around the High School, including the Chapel and our Museum. http://ies.sanisidro.madrid.educa.madrid.org//El%20edificio.htm
– Students presentation of the works done by each working group.
– Teachers will have lunch and they will meet in the afternoon to work together.
– Students will be with their families.
25 March (Tuesday)
– Visit to the Prado Museum, where the students will work on an activity which will involve nature and painting.
– Lunch in a nearby restaurant.
– Visit to the Botanic Garden and the Retiro Park. We will observe birds and plants
26th March (Wednesday)
– Outing to CENEAM (Environment Educational National Centre). We will travel by bus to the La Granja and visit its garden and Palace
– Visit some exhibitions and walk in the nearby forest.
– We will eat in La Granja area and we will visit the royal Palace and it gardens.
– We will come back to Madrid around 20:00.
27 March (Thursday)
– Students will collect the information given the day before and they will work in multinational groups.
– Guided tour around the City Centre and the popular “Barrio de las Letras”, where the Spanish students will be our guides.
28 March (Friday)
– Students will work in multinational groups at the High School and they will prepare their final presentations.
– Teachers meeting to reach some conclusions and to prepare the next meeting in Colonne.
– Students will present their works and their final conclusions.
– Free afternoon for teachers and students.
29/30 March (Saturday and Sunday)
– Teachers and Students will go back to their countries.
– We will say good bye to all of them at Madrid-Barajas Airport.
Report of the fifth project meeting in Cologne (11.-17.05.2014)
Program Comenius-Meeting Cologne 12. Mai – 16. May 2014
Date
Action
Sa. 10.05.
Arriving at the airport, pickup by families and colleagues
So 11.05.
Arriving at the airport, pickup by families and colleagues
Dinner at restaurant Fährhaus Rodenkirchen, teachers
Mo 12.05.
Welcome at the school 9:00
Presentations 10:30 till 12:00
Lunch
14:00 Guided tour by students
Di 13.05.
Excursion to the mountains (Hohes Venn) 9:00 till 18:00
Picnic
side trip to Monschau
Mi 14.05.
Working in the school: preparation of the materials, creation of the film, building the insect-hotel
Afternoon free
Spring reception at the school with dinner and drinks
Do 15.05.
Working in the school part two: preparation of the materials, creation of the film, building the insect-hotel
Lunch
14:00 till 18:00 Excursion: Natural reserve Baadenberger Senke, Stoeckheimer See
Fr 16.05.
9:00 till 12:00 Final conclusion „Fair of Biodiversity” in the Mensa,
Presentation of all results and solutions of the last two years
Official discharge
Afternoon free
Goodbye at the airport
Tarnow, Istanbul
Dinner with the teachers
Sa 17.05.
Goodbye at the airport
Cagliari, Madrid
