Fresh Water: Memory and Future Heritage

All the teachers involved in the Project would like to thank Jorge Gabriel Henriques –the father of the project- and the Escola Secondaria of Alcanena (Portugal). 
We are very sorry they didn't get a grant. We appreciate the work they had done.

For us, Westerners, WATER is fundamentally a substance of basic molecular constitution, vital for the planet’s survival. Its daily use, pumping out of our home taps, makes us forget its importance both for the human development of the planet and that of societies. We also tend to ignore poverty issues and related life quality standards, as well as the need for WATER preservation.

Campaigns aiming to raise people’s awareness and to provide training on preservation and protection of water resources are constantly underway and it is already widely understood that otherwise water might be a source of conflicts in this millennium.
The specific characteristics of its molecule grant it with unique properties. A sole and slight alteration in one of its properties would immediately imply a complete change of the Earth’s balance.

This WATER technical and scientific context does not exhaust its importance. It has been an element characterizing the progress of societies and entered collective memory in different ways, between the immaterial – its myth and symbol portrayed by the festivities connected to its cult, religion, oral and written literature, thus inspiring poets and painters – and the material, which thrives from its primitive forms of preservation to the evolution of its techniques of transportation and preservation.

Facing the challenges WATER poses – pollution of the underground water springs and beds, water scarcity, preservation and protection needs – SCHOOL has become an agent of consciousness awareness, citizenship and ethic culture imperative for the building of heritage and environmental education, where cooperation and collaboration will promote the perception that interdependence is needed on what will concern water in the near future: “Emphasizing that water is critical for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the eradication of poverty and hunger, and is indispensable for human health and well-being, according the 58/217 Resolution of O.N.U”.

The aims of the Partnership

Cognitive goals:

1. Learn about local and national realities concerning water issues
2. Compare local and national realities to those of the partner countries
3. Raise awareness towards the importance of preserving and protecting water on the scope of its being a world problem and need
4. Get to understand how water technologies and equipments evolved along the centuries in Europe and, most specifically in the Mediterranean basin and north Europe, studding the different solutions in both part of Europe
5. Become aware of the processes and solutions developed towards water protection, as well as of the national legislations and the international Charts on the issue
6. Demonstrate the importance of water on what concerns social and environmental life quality standards and also as a development indicator on, amongst other factors, life patterns, public health and efforts against poverty
7. Study water imagery as stated in the literature (oral and written traditions) and painting of each partner country
8. Develop community campaigns aiming to prevent and diminish water wasting
9. Collaborate with local Cultural and Environmental Associations on Heritage and Environmental issues related to the theme (Water).
10. Promote communicative approaches based on the use of foreign languages (English and French)
11. Use multimedia languages appropriately

Training (ethical and technical) goals

1. Develop a cooperative and collaborative culture
2. Realize the importance of water on the context of World Peace
3. Understand the importance of interdependence on issues related to protection and preservation
4. Realize the importance of the Right to Water on the context of Human Rights
5. Promote skills on creativity and work/info presentation
6. Deepen research methodologies and skills
7. Develop analysis critical methods on how to access information
8. Develop research and investigation skills (info reorganisation, oral presentations, written essays), namely with the help of multimedia tools
9. Develop a spirit of curiosity and creativity built upon the dialogue between one and the others

Impacts on the participants

1. International access to educational resources thanks to collaborative work and multimedia use
2. Improvement of teaching and learning standards through interactive, cooperative and collaborative didactics reinforced by a comparative methodology
3. Divulgation of produced materials
4. Increase of Community intervention through strengthening cooperation between School and the different partners
5. Promotion of the interest towards foreign languages learning
6. Fighting school failure through the promotion of extracurricular and other complementary educational activities, namely carried out within the Clubs involved in the Project (Heritage, Journalism, Live Science, European citizenship…)

Students’ involvement

Students will be the main project target. They will be permanently involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the activities. The aim is (according to our prior experience) to help students learn how to design, carry out and reflect upon a project that is becoming an important part of their school days. They will present ideas, plan and organise events, host and guide foreign colleagues during the meetings, organise and guide visits to exhibitions, do experiments on the subject of the Project (Water) produce newspaper articles and leaflet info, collect data and present small seminar communications, assess work done, elaborate on the quality of the actions meanwhile carried out, discuss, analyse and evaluate the results – always according to a group work methodology integrating students, teachers and other eventual personnel.
Students get to know the cultural background of different nations, their history and traditions. They use the internet possibilities and direct contacts at project meetings. Working together at a common project, students of different nations and cultural traditions understand each other best.
We will discuss the importance of water in every day life, look for the water image in literature, folklore, history of countries. Then we try to compare our historical and cultural heritage with other countries

Integration of the Partnership into the curriculum

The Project will be mainly dealing with the following curriculum subjects: mother language, project official communication languages (English and French), History, Arts, Biology, Chemistry, Geography and ICT. It is aimed that each of these subjects organise tasks connected to one or more of the Project topics, integrating them in specific areas of their programmes and promoting an interdisciplinary approach where data and info collected and organised may portray the development of skills based not only on the knowledge about theoretical issues but also on the ability to deal with research tools in order to build successful project works.
The teachers involved in the project will prepare a summary of the topics and activities which will be included in the syllabus of their subjects stating which groups of students will participate in the project. They will also include an evaluation of the activities in the general report of their subjects at the end of the school year to be sent to the school inspectors.