The Town I Want to Live in: A Sustainable Approach

The week of November 11 to 15, IES Escultor Juan de Villanueva school hosted the second mobility meeting of the Erasmus + project “The town I want to live in: a sustainable approach # MyTown2020” that deals with how to find and provide solutions to improve the quality of life in all four cities of each participating country, using the concepts of sustainability, pollution, health and energy efficiency.

In the first mobility meeting, which took place in the Czech Republic, the students took stock of the environmental and quality of life problems existing in their cities, using citizen surveys and preparing a noise map.

In this second event in Spain, the participating students from the four countries have presented ideas that contribute to sustainability in their respective cities, as well as examples of sustainable buildings and cities whose model could be moved to them, or that inspire changes towards an improvement of life quality. In this task the students have worked with the support of the participating teachers in the various subjects.

The Spanish school have been visited by 21 students and 6 teachers from the other three countries, who joined the local 23 students and 8 teachers. The three students who returned from the two-month mobility in the Czech Republic have also participated, as well as two other Czech students who have also been in the Spanish school in a 2-month mobility, all of them with the same project. In total, 49 students and 14 teachers from four nationalities have been participating in the meeting. Visiting students have stayed in families of the participating students.

In the program of activities of the week a reception was held to the multinational group in the City of Siero by the municipality, a 3D modeling computer workshop with the Sketch-Up program aimed at proposing improvement solutions on city plans , and a presentation of the sustainable experiences of the four cities in the Municipal Auditorium, with the presence and participation of the City Council, which in turn exposed the EMUSI sustainability program financed with EU funds for the 2018-2023 period.

As for free time, visits were made to the Museum of Mining and Industry of El Entrego, to the Botanical Garden of Gijón, as well as a climbing activity at the Gravity Climbing Center of Avilés.

Here you can see the coverage of the news by the media:

https://www.lne.es/centro/2019/11/14/utopia-pola-habitable-disena-instituto/2557810.html

https://www.lne.es/centro/2019/11/12/alumnos-tres-paises-visitan-siero/2556865.html

https://www.elcomercio.es/asturias/siero-centro/recepcion-estudiantes-erasmus-20191112001256-ntvo.html

Three Spanish students have been in the Gymnázium Frýdlant nad Ostravicí (Czech Republic) from September 8 to November 10, making a two-month long-term mobility stay in the framework of the KA229 The Town I Want To Live In project. There the students are housed in families of school students and they attend classes normally.

Apart from attending the classes, the three students participated in all the project activities planned by the Czech partners, especially those aimed at preparing short-term mobility that took place at the IES Escultor Juan de Villanueva (Pola de Siero, Spain) in November.
All three students have been fully integrated and have the great hospitality and excellent organization of the Czech partners. They have fully enjoyed this unique experience in the heart of Europe.

Below you can see the follow-up by the Gymnázium Frýdlant nad Ostravicí school for a project activity on the management of GIS programs taught by the Department of Geoinformatics of the University of Ostrava in which the students participated:

https://gymfrydl.cz/8-aktuality/621-projektovy-den-na-katedre-geoinformatiky-vsb

On the other hand, two Czech students have also concluded their long-term mobility stay of two months in the IES Escultor Juan de Villanueva (Pola de Siero, Spain), from September 10 to November 16. The students have also stayed in two families of school students and have attended the classes normally, integrating fully into the life of Pola de Siero. Apart from the academic activity, they have participated in all the planned project activities, aimed at preparing the short-term mobility that took place a at the IES Escultor Juan de Villanueva in November.

For more info about the project go to https://erasmusplusescultor.wordpress.com/proyecto-ka229/ (in Spanish!)

The second training activity for teachers took place from September 10 to 13 in the Finnish city of Lappeenranta. Two teachers from each partner country attended, including the hosts. They prepared a program of workshops and talks based on the STEAM learning methodology (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Maths), which is one of the axes of our Erasmus + KA229 project “The Town I Want To Live In” – # MyTown2020.
Like the previous activity on the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in the classroom, the main objective of this training mobility is that teachers acquire the basic tools of the STEAM methodology to work with students. STEAM-based work is indispensable in this project, given the marked multidisciplinary nature of the central idea, which lies in the sustainable approach to the city from the various areas of knowledge. The ultimate goal is to reach solutions that integrate the results obtained with the help of the work done in each of the subjects participating by the students and their teaching staff. Therefore, the training activity is fully aligned with the core of the project.

Mobility has been a full success of organization and content. Special mention deserves the participatory and interactive nature of the workshops in which Finnish hosts are accomplished experts. The work program was taught at the LUT-Lappeenranta-Lahti University: It included 3D city modeling, with special consideration for sustainable building, and an introduction to SketchUp. Likewise, the circumstance was taken that Lappeenranta is a city located at the forefront of sustainability and advanced solutions in the field of the environment, to address the green technologies that are currently being used, for example, bioconstruction as a means to urban stormwater purification. Participants had the opportunity to visit the city’s urban wastewater analysis and purification laboratories. The Green Reality project was also presented to participants as a paradigm, which jointly develops the municipality of Lappeenranta with the LUT. This project includes urban planning, zoning of green areas and air quality monitoring.

For more info about the project go to https://erasmusplusescultor.wordpress.com/proyecto-ka229/ (in Spanish!)