Maria Regina in environment re-education project

"Preserving the environment of Europe - now and for the future" is a three-year Comenius project that Maria Regina Girls' Junior Lyceum is taking part in together with schools from France, Poland, UK and Greece.

The project, which started this scholastic year, seeks to encourage students to become conscious of their lifestyle's impact on the environment and to present environmental preservation as a global issue.

The project's ultimate aim is for students to implement pro-environmental changes in their lives and for them to become green ambassadors. To this end an intensive programme of educating and re-educating is being put into action.

The protagonists are the students; they are being encouraged to take an active role in research and to present and communicate the relevant information to other students at school, to their families and to the wider community.

James Evans and Angele Pulis, as project co-ordinator and participating teacher respectively, recently represented the school at a project meeting held in Kilkis, Greece, aimed at co-ordinating this year's calendar of activities and plan the activities for the second year of the project which focuses on energy and the environment. Mr Evans, who as project co-ordinator chaired the meeting, harmonised the valid but sometimes divergent contributions made by the teachers participating in the brainstorming sessions.

At the end of the meeting a programme for the project's second year was formulated based on a healthy cross-fertilisation of ideas. The main activities of the second year will include research on the effect of fossil fuels; learning about renewable sources of energy; actual studies carried out by students to assess attitudes towards conserving energy; a power-point presentation by the students describing the energy practices in each country; and the planning and implementation of an energy conservation policy in each school.

This was the first Comenius project for the Greek hosting school, Kilkis Gymnasium. When the teachers from the partner schools visited the school, the students' initial reactions were striking - they were withdrawn yet friendly, slightly shy but at the same time the yearning for contact with representatives of other European schools was clear.

The students' pride, enthusiasm and joy in taking part in the project was evident in everything they did. In line with the spirit of the project, the students used waste material to make welcoming tokens for the guest teachers.

Throughout the meeting, the whole of Kilkis treated the participating teachers as distinguished guests. They had meetings with the mayor and with educational authorities. These meetings were not only a courteous gesture. It was clear that the Greek authorities viewed these meetings as a means to learn about the different educational systems and environmental initiatives. They were particularly interested about our local structures. The exchanges during these meetings were mutually fruitful to both hosts and guests.

Everyone agreed that Comenius projects give students and teachers the chance to stretch their potential further and that the European perspective gives them the opportunity to broaden their educational experience.

This is the main advantage that a Comenius project has over school-based initiatives. A school participating in such a project exploits the expertise and variety offered by various other countries. For a small island like ours this is an indispensable educational experience for students and for educators.

Mr Evans and Ms Pulis attended the project meeting through funding allocated for mobility by the Maltese National Socrates Agency under the European Union Comenius programme.