Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 2017 No. 7 | Page 26
Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2017 Newsletter
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The ELENA project at school
by Gabriela Săndulescu
Learning through real experiences
Education for the conservation of biodiversity in the
context of sustainable development requires a
development of skills that is not possible without
the direct experience of the pupils related to
different species and their natural habitats. The
Comenius (predecessor of Erasmus+) project
ELENA (Learning through Experimental Discovery
and Education for Nature Awareness) has aimed at
improving students' scientific research capability
and developing attitudes towards the conservation
and sustainable use of biodiversity as part of nature
protection.
The project promotes a set of values and attitudes,
such as curiosity and respect for any form of life,
increased care towards one's own person, towards
others and towards any form of life, tolerance of
others' opinions, and active involvement in solving
the global problem of nature protection.
The idea of the project was to go beyond the
boundary of moral consciousness formation and to
reach the stage of moral conduct of students,
manifested through habits, as well as positive
features such as responsibility, self-control,
courage, tolerance, gentleness, patience , esteem,
sensitivity, vigilance, generosity, compassion,
opposed to negative ones such as selfishness,
waste, negligence, obtuseness, inconsistency.
Personal experience
We organized activities within the ELENA project,
which focused on wolves and dogs, reptiles, and
ants. Within these activities, the 6th grade students
had the opportunity to analyze the behaviour of
some animals in various situations. Regarding the
wolf and dogs module, pupils were able to observe
a trained dog of a colleague and thus learned how
to act around families’ dogs or strangers’ dogs.
They also attended presentations by colleagues
describing the behaviour of personal dogs in various
situations.
I also presented them with pictures of dogs in
various situations, which they analyzed and
compared with the real ones of their own dogs.
There were discussions about the behaviour of dogs
in various situations.
At the end of the activity, students were given an
activity sheet – its requirement was to identify the
correct behaviour in various situations: terrified
dog, aggressive dog, and relaxed dog.
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