EkoSkola Malta

ERASMUS+ Project Caring for Our Waters – Water Resources and Animation in Education

The ERASMUS+ project by Gozo College Żebbuġ primary under the coordination of Nature Trust has again made it possible for a group of educators to go to Athens for a week long about diligent water management, rain water collection, water saving techniques, using animation in education and other innovative teaching methods which can especially be adopted  in the classroom and school setting.

The participating educators had a very intensive 7 day training, 9am to 5pm, provided by MEdIES, supported by Nature Trust and co funded by the European Commission.  The training involved exploring resource packs, adapting lessons to different age groups and abilities, catering for special students, creating new resources and learning about innovative resources,  fieldwork, linking with other educators from Greece,  visiting antique water systems, a water recycling plant, the Marathon dam, a nature reserve where fresh water meets the sea and other related venues to give participants different points of view of how the water topic can be presented to students, helping appreciate more its value and scarcity.  The Alter Aqua resource pack was also explored, discussed and  lesson plans  built upon and adapted the to students under the educator’s care.  The aim of the school is to work on all fronts through its EkoSkola committee, mobilising the whole school,  the village community and also reaching out to the authorities.   This project is intended to create awareness, reach out to as many people as possible but on a more personal/school level, cater for the varied needs of the students attending the school,  including all of them, notwithstanding their various language limitations, cultures, religions and backgrounds through a common topic of interest – water, a resource which all of us depend on for life, which,  though always available in our taps is frequently taken for granted but which with climate change is all the more effecting the natural habitat on our island because of either torrential rains or long periods of drought.  The attendees also had special sessions to learn how to produce animations using resources they can easily have available.