The 1st day of the Summer School aimed to create a common ground from which the participants would initiate an exchange of ideas and experiences, as they brought along diverse background and professional status. Therefore, activities on Day 1 focused on familiarizing the participants with the content of the TAP-TS project and with the reasoning around which the summer school was structured and offering the participants opportunities to discuss concepts and aspects of content of education for sustainability. Participants formed different subgroups during the activities in order to start getting to know each other and to reflect on what they had “brought in” to the newly born community of educators who pursue learning and teaching sustainability. Furthermore, on Day 1, part of the TPL “Sustainability and Environmental Education” was piloted, focusing on biodiversity. Day 1 also included a walking guided tour to the old town of Larnaca, which focused on the multicultural population of Larnaca and the history of their establishment in the town.
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Rationale of the Summer School – Welcome (Dr Pavlina Hadjitheodoulou-Loizidou, Head of In-Service Training Department, CPI)
Dr Hadjitheodoulou-Loizidou presented the rationale of the Summer School and stressed the importance of teachers’ professional learning in capitalizing on teachers’ interests, challenges and needs and offering learning opportunities and in underlining transformation of teachers, groups and contexts. She focused on teachers’ role in taking initiatives and actions while pursuing their own active learning and reflection, in transforming their own identity and in working collaboratively towards the formation of professional learning communities. She elaborated on the importance of reflection in comparing, contracting, asking questions (What? Why? How did the activities go? What can we do for a follow up?) and seeking for answers.
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Welcoming from the Cyprus Pedagogical Institute (Dr Elena Hadjikakou, Acting Director)
Dr Hadjikakou welcomed officially the participants to Cyprus and presented some information about CPI as one of the Directorates of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth. She noted that for the first Summer School, the CPI tried to include highly collaborative, centred on prototyping, use-and-value piloting and evaluating by the consortium activities, in order to provide innovative, and pedagogically sound professional learning experiences with practical value, and also to give all the participants the opportunity to meet with educational practices that are used in Cyprus regarding professional learning and sustainability and with the history and culture of the island.
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Brief presentation of the TAP-TS project (Dr Rachel Bowden, TU Dresden University of technology)
Dr Rachel Bowden, as the TAP-TS project coordinator, made a short introduction to TAP-TS, explaining the main project goals and elaborating especially on WP2 (LTPs) and WP3 (teacher training events).
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Ice-Breaking Activity (Dr Maria Eracleous, Cyprus Pedagogical Institute)
Participants used the badge they took during registration (a piece of a puzzle with a coloured paper on the back) and looked around to find teammates that had the same colour on the puzzle back paper. They formed a group around a table and created their own name badge. They introduced themselves to the rest of the team, which would be their “reflection team” during the Summer School, and they cooperated to choose the name of their reflection team. After that, they picked up pieces of puzzle pictures and they found their “other half” in the group to complete the picture. Together, they discussed how their personal elements, experiences or opinions could be related to the picture (Note: Pictures selected from Green Comp, https://green-comp.eu/). Finally, they had the name of their team and their initial comments and ideas stuck on the wooden reflection trees, and they shared the idea behind the name they had chosen in plenary.
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LTP 1 Teaching sustainability for a sustainable Europe
Rachel Bowden
TU Dresden University of technology
In this introductory session, participants reflected on their understanding of (un)sustainability and critically considered (un)sustainability in international discourse. They explored the relationship between education and sustainability, became familiar with the European Commission’s sustainability competence framework (GreenComp), and evaluated its relevance for them, personally and professionally.
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LTP 3 Sustainability and Environmental Education | My actions to protect biodiversity!
Bento Cavadas, Susana Colaço, Neusa Branco
Instituto Politecnico de Santarem (IPS)
Biodiversity and ecosystems are key concepts in sustainability. Participants in this workshop presented their conceptions about biodiversity in an ice-breaking activity. Then, they created a simulated ecosystem, in a group work. A reflection on the impact of human activities on the shaping of the ecosystem and ways of prevention or mitigation those damages, was carried in the same groups. Embodying sustainability values, such as promoting fairness and promoting nature, were the key competences suggested to lead the reflection. The workshop ended with a group discussion on the potential of this activity to promote primary school students’ actions to protect biodiversity, supported by an analysis of a poster entitled “Primary students’ conceptions about ecosystems damage and protection”. Participants also shared those ideas on a Padlet®.
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Guided walking tour (Iosif Hadjikyriakos, Director of Phivos Stavrides Foundation - Larnaca Archives)
Dr Iosif Hadjikyriakos led the guided walking tour. Participants departed from Europe Square, walked through the “Finikoudes” promenade, the streets of the old town of Larnaca and Piale Pasha Street. They were informed about the statue of Kimon the Athenian, the late-9th century Saint Lazarus Church, the Statue of the Lion of St. Mark, and the Medieval Fort, and they discussed the moving/resettlement/relocation of population groups in the town of Larnaca, mainly due to Turkish invasion of 1974, and, due to migration flows during the last decades.