Norway (Engerdal)

Engerdal Barne- og Ungdomskole

“EBUS” is located in the middle of the nature, in Engerdal, a rural mountain area with 2 important national parks( Femundsmarka & Gutulia) in the Eastern part of Norway, near the Swedish boarder. Our institution has two distinct departements: a general primary school(6 –12 years), and a lower secondary school departement(13-16 years). Having a refugee camp in our municipality, with families that have children in the school age, our school has a dynamic number of pupils that can vary between 170-180 pupils. There are 27 employees and to some extent all of them will be involved in the project work, with the foreign languages teacher and the leader of all international cooperation work at our school, Mihaela Edstrøm, who has more than 8 years of experience in leading and coordinating international projects with very good results. Additionally, she will be suported by the leadership and a competent team of teachers with relevant education needed in this project: the Science teacher, the PE and Health & Nutrition teacher and of course the local authorities, supported by the school leadership, as an insurance that the project will be fulfilled. The central purpose of the school community is the intellectual, moral, physical and social education of the pupils. Our community seeks to create an inclusive atmosphere in which pupils can feel safe and confident in each other. The school is commited to respect the dignity of the pupil with her/his background, traditions and beliefs:valuing the potential of each and encouraging the strong to support the weak. Our school uses often the outdoor area as teaching "classroom" and therefore we have as main focus to keep a healthy environment for our pupils and make responsible and fair decisions on environmental behaviour. We have been involved in two previous projects (Comenius and Erasmus+), where the focus was pointed on local nature,natioanal parks with their flora and fauna , outdoor activities and developing better ICT competances. The topic of this project seems to be the perfect link to a further step within the same area, though this time with focus on taking benefit of the local nature, both as eager learners and contributors. We believe that our participation in this project fits well the needs of our institution: Encouraging pupils to develop communication, digital, civic and interpersonal competences, thus rendering them responsible, competitive and self-confident in an ever changing environment; This project will help us to raise awareness for both students and adults when it comes to provide a healthier food, to protect endangered arts (either plants or animals), to adjust the soil for gardening even in a rough climate as ours. Our partners will hopefully teach us useful gardening techniques .We want to combine the modern digilasied classroom with the outdoorone in such way that our students can see and understand the value of our nature and its resources.

Do you want to learn more? Go to: www.ebus.no