Activity I. Each partner will analyze the festivals of their own country or city. What festivals do they celebrate? Where do they come from?
Activity II. We will reflect on the role of women in these festivals. How is she represented? What are her main attributes?
Activity III. We will analyze popular songs from each participant country. Which values do they highlight? Do they praise their countries as the best ones? Are they sexist?
Once the activities have been done, we will value those traits in the popular festivals and traditions we feel identified with and which, if any, are anachronistic nowadays.
Activity IV. The students will make a video about their festivals that will be shown at the learning and training activities meeting and we will discuss about the most striking and differentiating elements. We will also talk about similar festivals or traditions. Where are they from? Are they imported from other countries?.
In our visits, we will go to places related to these traditions and festivals and if it is possible we will try to make the date of our visit coincide with one of these festivals.
The host country will be Romania, which is the farthest one for us. We have a biased image of it because of the gypsy immigrants and its controversial president. They will show us their festivals and they will tell us about their language (of Latin origin like ours) and we will check if we are so different.
Activity V. Relationship between climatology and country.
Geographical location is a starting point to get to know the peculiarities of the different countries and this is the reason why we are going to see the geography and climate of each of the participant countries.
a) We will find out about the climograph of the different places where the schools are located. We will search the annual average temperature and precipitation, hours of sunlight per year, direction of prevailing winds, influence and closeness to the sea and main associated climate risks.
b) Taking into account the school days, we will have a look at holidays in the different countries and if it is something to do with climate.
c) Daily schedules: school days, breaks, lunchtime and extracurricular activities.
d) Gastronomy, the cuisine of each region is associated with its climate, both for the number of calories in the food intake and for the basic products of each place. Main dishes are also related to the natural environment and its characteristics.
e) Local and allochthonous products. We will find out about the most used ones and relate them to History and Economy. In the case of Spain, some ingredients have been added to our typical dishes after the discovery of America, for example, potato.
f) We will talk about international cuisine and globalization. We will see pros and cons. There will be a debate, in which two teams, at random, will tell us about advantages and disadvantages. There will be also some judges who will draw up conclusions after the presentation given by each team.
g) We will deal with the relationship between diet and health (healthy habits, consumption of vegetables and fresh fruit, fish as a common dish in our diet, daily calories in the food intake and non sedentary activities, etc).
h) We will have a look at the life expectancy in each of the participant countries and relate them to diet, physical activity, health system and preventive medicine.
Activity VI. Differences between North and South.
Economic, social and environmental differences between the North and the South are an important problem we can find in many countries and on some continents. The countries from the North are more developed than those from the South, within a country we can see the places from the North are wealthier than the ones from the South (in Spain, for example) and even within the same region. We should try to find out the origin of this phenomenon since its existence is evident.
a) We will seek the per capita income of the countries taking part in the project that were deliberately chosen from the North and South. We will compare them and look for possible causes.
b) We will also compare the different education systems. Are there any differences between North and South?
c) We can talk about the different measures that could be carried out in order to reduce those differences, including those ones related to the preservation of the environment. The students have to make a report and draw up conclusions that will be presented to the rest of the school community in each country.
Activity VII.Religious, political and social days off.
We will deal with the different religious, political and social bank holidays in each country and we will relate them to the history of each one.What kind of influence do they have on their culture?
a) The different national holidays will be seen in an annual calendar and we will talk about their origin.
b) The students, in groups, will discuss about it and draw up some conclusions, being respectful to different opinions.
