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Micro- and Macrocosm through Science, Arts and Nature
Start date: Jan 1, 2016, End date: Dec 31, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

This project is the joint work of the current 11th classes and their teachers from two schools: the Fehérlófia Waldorf Általános Iskola, Gimnázium és Alapfokú Müvészeti Iskola (FWI) in Hungary, and La Cruna Associazione per la Pedagogia Steiner Waldorf (LCA) in Italy. Both schools have a recently founded secondary school: FWI has reached its first final class this school year; at LCA the current 11th class is the oldest. The pupils of the two classes involved in the project expressed their openness for international relations with shared peer learning. In Italy this is a first for the class, the Hungarian class have had experiences with foreign classes, and now they wish to have a decisive hand in the planning and preparation of joint project work. Both schools see the added values of international cooperation, such as the widening of the pupils horizons, experiencing different cultures, lifestyles and habits, and doing this with others of their age, as peer learning is the strongest motivator for acquiring knowledge.When repeatedly meeting in other European contexts, the persons from the two schools responsible for the international relations recognised the similarities between the needs and aims of their schools.Within the project two highly interactive activities will be carried out, both revolving around the theme described in the title: one in Italy, on a biodynamic farm and in Venice, the other in the Bakony Hills in Hungary. The sciences (biology, embryology and astronomy) and maths (projective geometry) form the central pivot around which all the other activities revolve. Arts, movement, practical farm and forestry work will be integrated into the project. The project is built up in a way that students will be able to discover the unity of the universe and human being (nature) for themselves and begin to make sense out of the complexity of the natural and mathematical laws that govern the equilibrium of terrestrial life. They will come to recognise the fundamental veracity that every human being is of the same spiritual origin independently of their nationality, skin colour, cultural background. This kind of synthesis in thinking is the guarantee for overcoming egoism and for rejecting all forms of racism or xenophobia, which are serious issues in the current times. In the preparation and implementation of the project great emphasis is put on the informal and non-formal learning pathways.As the English language, used throughout the project, is a foreign language for almost all pupils and teachers, it will be a challenge to overcome the fear of communicating, accepting that it can be done even if it is linguistically imperfect. There are other ways of communicating and establishing relationships when there is a real living dialogue, as in new encounters and common activities. In this, the teachers will give the prime example.The 14 Hungarian and 18 Italian pupils are from different social, geographical and academic backgrounds; this only adds to their building of solidarity. Pupils discover that being different is not a problem - they do know that already on the local level, but they can realise this in an international context now. The overcoming of barriers, whether imagined or real, subjective or objective, is central in the aims of everyone involved in the project.Before, between and after the activities there will be contact between the two groups of pupils via social media on the internet. The first personal contacts have already taken place.The participants will improve their communication skills in English, their social skills on an international level, their knowledge about the universe, nature and human being from a complex and holistic point of view. The project will raise questions within them related to the world and they will develop a sense of research in order to find answers to these questions by themselves. It will encourage them to explore the outer and the inner world, to build sense out of them and to be able to connect to both dimensions in a constructive way.By working together and sharing the different cultural and legal requirements concerning education, including how to implement innovations, the partners will gain knowledge and creativity to tackle challenges in their own countries.The project's results will be disseminated at the schools, and will be shared throughout the networks of the schools and by the pupils themselves within their personal and digital peer networks.In today’s society that changes very fast it is important to connect the fields of theoretical and practical knowledge. This approach contributes to developing the necessary competences in pupils that they will need in their lives and careers. This project merges these different fields of knowledge with the help of informal, non-formal and formal learning elements and methods so that the pupils experience what is beyond the border of classroom learning and cultural restraints.
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