This venture is part of an eTwinning European project, and our entry won a Prize in Nature Based Solutions for the Stem Discovery Campaign for Teachers 2023 organized by Scientix and the European Teachers' SchoolNet.
The project involved seven European countries and it was the beginning of a long journey of sustainability building and discovery of nature and its wonders. Young students who live in urban environments are not often involved in environmental projects consistently and we considered it of an immense importance for our students to be integrated in a European environmental - stem project and explore new ways of triggering their innate interest in nature and hopefully recovering their touch with the environment by joining forces with other like-minded educationalists who are also environmentalists.
The project was extended by our school and many activities were added as our students took part in a National Competition related to creating a sustainable school environment and a significant effort was made to provide students with hands-on activities, develop a strong connection with their school environment and involve local authorities in their environmental actions.
In the specific project students created biodomes in seeds with recyclable material, and they took on the role of taking care of their plants until they were ready to be planted in our open space, raised structured beds. They also participated in a composting activity and utilized the knowledge of an expert - an agronomist and a forester were invited to our school who shared their knowledge with our students about composting material and planting. Students from all classrooms learned how to grow plants and vegetables, and gathered all the biological composting ingredients which were necessary for the composting activity. In addition to this, students learned how to design the school garden, a rock garden, and a compost bin by using tinker cad, which enabled them to materialize their plans and become architects and space designers of their school garden and in this way, they also formed a strong sustainability identity.
Furthermore, our project used stem education, coding, and robotics extensively, as students created a robot for watering their plants by using microbit, as well as special coding and sensors which indicated when a plant was being watered. They were also involved in scratch coding and created a simulation with the assistance of the kit Makey Makey, which presented the way in which plants are being watered and revived.
Technology was extensively used in our project, which, in combination with real-life planting activities, created an amazing response from students, who, in their turn, embarked on an adventure and created a respect for nature and the environment!
Thank you a lot. This project has received a National Quality Label quite recently and an award for a 3d design competition from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. It is a project that assisted students in creating a sustainable school environment!