Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group Newsletter 2017 No. 7 | Page 26

Visibility of eTwinning Projects Group July 2017 Newsletter ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. 26