About the project Wonders of Waste (WOW)
Wonders of Waste is a project about how we can use our waste in teaching with children. The things we do to live a comfortable life can affect the world we live in, and the quantity of garbage we produce every day is something we should take more care of. With not much effort and care from each individual, we can radically change the impact we have on our planet. In order to reduce the continuous production of waste and to apply a real sustainable development, it is necessary that we make essential changes in our consumption habits, daily behavior, lifestyle and our ways of life. The sooner we learn how to make these changes, the better it will be for our planet and future generations. This is the reason for our view on teaching our children about the planet: they are never too young to learn, even in kindergarten education.
For our first meeting, we met in Iceland October 2019. The meeting was about us organizing the project and discussing which assignments were related to the project, additionally to a discussion about where the assignment presentation should take place. Each participant took place in making these decisions as well as planning with other participants. Lastly, everyone had to agree with the results. The participants made the following decisions about next meetings should be:
- February 2020 – Poland – Cathegories
- June 2020 – Turkey – Reuse
- October 2020 – Greece – Mid-Term valuation
- February 2021 – Bulgaria – Recycling
- April 2021 – Italy – How to make reuse and recycling an everyday thing
- June 2021 – Norway – Final report
We did the first 2 meetings in Iceland and Poland but after the Poland meeting the school in some countries got closed because of COVID-19 so we couldn´t continue. The project will be divided into 4 parts: Recognize, Reduce, Recycle (and Reuse), and Root.
An LTT will take place at the end of each part, in order to share activities, results, impact etc. of what each partner has achieved on the specific subject. This first workshop took place in Poland: the Polish partner is very experienced and will be a good example for the less experienced partners. They already have the Green Flag Eco-School certification and also on this they will be great help for the others. During the meeting, each school will show what has been done about waste recognition activities, explain strategies, methods and teaching plans applied to help children recognize materials, distinguish what is recyclable, natural and organic and what is not. Teachers will share personal and professional growth achieved during this part of the project, issues faced and solutions applied to overcome them. Each partner will prepare a presentation to show partners and to upload on our TwinSpace. The hosting partner will also organize meetings with local experts on this subject to enhance our knowledge and/or we will visit remarkable places related to this issue.
The second workshop will take place in Turkey: the Turkish school has no experience in Erasmus projects, but is already achieving internal and national programs about waste management and eco-friendly activities, because they already got ECO-SCHOOL certification. Particularly interesting will be to share their activities of planting acorns in barren areas to fight deforestation, which are a perfect example of activity to REDUCE out impact on the planet and the waste of resources. During the meeting, each school will show what has been done about waste reduction activities, explain strategies, methods and teaching plans applied to help children, teachers, families and community to reduce the quantity of waste produced daily, lowering plastic consumption and increasing sustainable materials use. Teachers will share personal and professional growth achieved during this part of the project, issues faced and solutions applied to overcome them. Each partner will prepare a presentation to show partners and to upload on project website on TwinSpace. The hosting partner will also organize meetings with local experts on this subject to enhance our knowledge and/or we will visit remarkable places related to this issue.
The impact that the project has had on our children in our schools is that they are thinking more about our environment. They know that they can categorize their trash and reuse some of the material which lead them to take decisions which are good for our environment.