We are a team of teachers and students coming from different places in Europe: Ettlingen (Germany), Zagreb (Croatia), St.Brieuc (France) and Els Pallaresos (Spain), working together on the same project: A Journey Through Europe: A Traveller’s Guide for Teenagers by Teenagers.

 

Power Point presentation about the project

 

Project description

 

Within the EU, many political, economic and geographic borders have disappeared. Now, it has become easier for our citizens, young and old, to travel from one country to another and hence to discover the beauty and diversity of our historic continent. That is why the tourism sector is one of the key factors in fostering cultural exchange and creating new entrepreneurial projects. In fact, more and more youngsters/ teenagers seize the offered opportunities such as language exchanges, trainings, summer jobs, and holidays to travel or spend longer periods in different parts of Europe. While doing so, it is necessary for them to have access to culture, history, entertainment, information and services in a traveler's guide made especially for their needs and according to their age bracket. So far such traveller's guides on European destinations written by teenagers for teenage are quite rare. Our project aims at creating such a guide and therefore at giving a new perspective on travelling for young people. This guide will deal with different aspects of tourism in the four regions of the partner schools.

 

The focus will be on cultural and historical aspects, art, sights, leisure time, entertainment, information, services as well as guided tours in an appealing manner for the concerned age bracket. Further sections will deal with both sustainable, green tourism as well as the inclusion of people with special needs and disadvantaged groups. In each school the students will be divided in specific teams dealings with a certain aspect for instance layout, design, pictures, editing of texts, etc. Each team has a responsible member for the coordination, the progress and the flow of information. The teams will meet during the mobilities to present, discuss and finalize their results.

 

The project's motivation is to develop the students' entrepreneurial spirit emphasized in the Europe 2020 Growth Agenda. We decided to focus on tourism since it is one of the major economic sectors in the partner countries on a local, regional and national scale. By creating a traveller's guide for teenagers by teenagers, the students will have the opportunity to promote the acquistion of transversal key competences and to establish cooperation with the world of work. As a result, they will use their school knowledge, acquired skills and connect them with the interests of their peers. Moreover, this project will enhance their feeling of a complete intercultural interaction between the people of Europe for the current and future generations.

 

In addition, our end goal is to learn and to (re-)discover common and different aspects of our own region, as well as the regions of the participating countries. By doing so, our purpose is to raise awareness of European culture and tourism. This way, our pupils will experience both alterity and diversity by sharing information, meeting partners mainly of the same age, working together, presenting their projects and productions to each other. By means of our project, they will also improve their communication skills by using ICT during the two years of the project as well as their language skills by practising their English.