Some important decisions and a collective “yes!” to the project methodology that makes the students love and study the sea.

10 May 2019, Limassol, Cyprus. The meeting kicked off the last phase of the ALL – Aquatic Life Lab project, which now knock off the moorings from the individual countries: from this moment on, both the scientific partner work, that of tutors and teachers, but above all that of the students takes on a transnational dimension. The meeting was key to collectively decide the strategy to follow for the next phases of the project, but also to take stock of the situation on what has been done so far, both by the coordination staff and by the students.

The Cypriot crew has given everyone a warm welcome and even a blossoming spring has made this island the perfect setting for an intense and interesting meeting.

Dr. Francesca Morigi (FEEM) took care of opening the meeting, outlining the picture of the educational activities carried out so far and the goals that could be achieved. The classes have certainly benefited, in the words of Dr. Morigi, of an informal approach to otherwise highly specialized issues: the BlueHunt treasure hunt was a winning methodology to attract students to scientific discovery areas, and to let them embrace their individual research mandates with energy and passion. The online platform has collected the intellectual outputs of the students who, as budding researchers, have completed the essays on the website with their own personal contributions. The presentation of Dr. Morigi came to an end collecting a broad and shared enthusiasm from teachers and partners.

Dr. Tiziano Fazzi, CivicaMente CEO and spokesman for the project’s technological development partner-company, took the word immediately afterwards, dedicating his speech prior the mid-day break to a general survey of the next stages of work, with particular reference to some relevant technical and organizational concerns, as well as the most pertinent details of the web platform and its upcoming developments in terms of programming.

In the afternoon, the strategic organization activities took place, in which all the teachers and tutors participated, and finally it was time for the project reporting activities to be discussed. Together with Dr. Fazzi, committed to coordinating the decision table aimed at deciding the structure of the international groups of students (who will be involved in the production of the final e-books), was the moment of the intervention of Dr. Floriana Nappini (FEEM), with whom some aspects of administrative reporting were analyzed, but above all the external communication actions of the project for the coming months.

The new school year for ALL will open in September 2019 with a precise objective: to have 20 international groups of well-matched students, to let them research on 40 topics selected in agreement with the scientific partners, to coordinate better the transnational work through Skype calls and webinars, to celebrate the end of the project by electing the winning e-books among the 40 eventually produced by the students and assign the prize mobility.

Thanks to all the participants: T. Fazzi, G. Di Cataldo, F. Morigi, M.R. Amatruda, N. Merloni, F. Preziosa, A. Testa, MR Scebba, J. Basta, M. Kozina, Z. PongracŠtimac, C. Aristodemou, A. Parpa, F. Nappini, V. Angelini, V. Ragone, A .Tuccio, F. Mammoliti, M. Zekan, M. Georgiou, S. Vrhovec.

Thanks to Giorgia Albini for sharing a stylish DIY video,
that includes the experience of the Blue Hunt under a beautiful Sicilian sky.

Sunny is the word: also in Cyprus the Blue Hunt brings good luck and the sun grants a long and warm visit despite being already December.
Hunters were committed, but they also had fun and shared positive vibes …
ALL in ALL a beautiful postcard from Limassol!

Cyprus offers us a glimpse of excellence with a school that rewards proactivity and initiative, creativity and desire for internationalization:the sea that surrounds the island seems to inspire students and teachers towards ever new projects, increasingly ambitious challenges and engaging goals.

September the 21st: an intense day in Zagreb for the entire ALL team. Organizers, tutors, teachers and administrative teams involved in the ALL project met in the Croatian city to define the next steps and take stock of what has been done to date, the result was a day full of meetings and very productive.

On top of the agenda were the activities related to Blue Hunt, the exciting interactive “treasure-hunt” that will see the participating students really busy during the next period of this school year.

The day also gathered moments of real training for tutors and teachers: in addition to a complete survey of the next phases along with their methodological and technical aspects, a particularly detailed training was dedicated to the upcoming experience of the flipped classroom, scheduled from January 2019.

After a moment of welcome by Professor Dradi, director of Liceo Scientifico A. Oriani, the group’s work immediately came to life: Dr. Tiziano Fazzi (CivicaMente), has in fact explained carefully all the operating components of the Blue Hunt and then showed how they can be completed by the students thanks to the special smartphone app, specifically created for the ALL project and soon available on both Google and Apple stores for the students to download.

A particular focus during the morning was curated by Dr. Francesca Morigi, who illustrated the contents of the platform and the valuable contribution of all the partners to arrive at such a complete didactics of the resources.

The second part of the morning, always conducted by Dr. Fazzi, has focused on training tutors and teachers about the most advanced phase of the project, when students will work in international groups, interacting with each other thanks to the ALL online platform. The Zagreb meeting, in this specific discussion table, was an excellent opportunity to share all the criticalities of an ambitious road map, which will lead the students to the final production of 46 ebooks, related to different aspects of marine biodiversity and his protection.

After lunch, two parallel sessions were activated: in one session the teachers were able to deepen the methodological and operational issues concerning the flipped classroom, assisted by a dedicated guide and by the explanation of CivicaMente; in another more technical session, the project administration team carried out a meeting dedicated to reporting practices and financial aspects.

Thanks to all the participants: T. Fazzi, G. Di Cataldo, F. Morigi, M.R. Amatruda, N. Merloni, F. Preziosa, A. Testa, M. R. Scebba, J. Basta, M. Kozina, Z. PongracŠtimac, C. Aristodemou, A Parpa, F. Nappini, V. Angelini, V. Ragone, A. Tuccio, F. Mammoliti, M. Zekan, M. Georgiou, S. Vrhovec.

The digital technologies and devices make it possible for students from different nations, distant from each other, to participate in an engaging and inclusive educational experiences; ALL offers the participants a “cool” way of approaching the complexity of the Mediterranean marine environment: knowing means becoming more aware, responsible and respectful, and when learning can be a fun experience, everyone wins. The project involves several actors, each of them motivated to bring their best contribution. ENI and FEEM, with a substantial injection of economic-organizational energy and specific expertise; the Fondazione Cetacea in Riccione and the Blue World Institute in Zagreb, both involved in providing a high quality content structure; CivicaMente, which has been in charge to translate the project with digital teaching methodologies, an App and a dedicated web platform; Unesco and the Local Territorial Communities that have helped respectively drafting and organizing the project. The main actors, however, are teachers and students, all coming from four cities tightly related to the Mediterranean sea: Gela and Ravenna for Italy, Zagreb for Croatia and Cyprus. The project is developed within the Erasmusplus frame and makes use of the implementation of two specially created digital tools: an App running both in the Android and iOS environment and an online platform that can communicate with it; the platform has restricted access areas, remote learning areas and specific tool-kits for output production.
The virtual, cross-media dimension of collaboration is inspired by the principles of the educational strategy “peer education”: attentional stimuli, exploration, interaction and use of diversified multimedia content, give further value and quality to the educational path. The project includes preliminary training  for tutors, teachers and students of the participating schools, in order to prepare an in-depth knowledge of the thematic areas, i.e. the Mediterranean marine environment and its habitats, bio-indicators and target species, of what can alter ecosystems and what can help them survive. Other specific preliminary sessions are addressed to focus on the tools and methodology to be used. After this phase, the students and the teachers, assisted by tutors and by the drafting staff, find themselves doing an exciting field research through the App, between oceanographic museums and important bio-marine education sites in their cities. The final part of the project sees all the participants divided into transnational groups, connected to each other thanks to the ALL digital sharing platform and motivated to reach the goal of producing the final works.

The students will treasure this initiative. Participants will be able to acquire extra-curricular knowledge of an environmental nature: current, in-depth, empowering towards an environment that they live in first person, coming from maritime cities. The whole project takes place in English language, therefore the further refinement of the language skills will be counted among the results achievable by participating to the ALL project. Finally, thanks to the operational architecture, the students will be able to test different soft-skills, aimed at reinforcing their consistency as researchers, their ability to work in groups and to interface remotely: writing, iconographic documentation, layout and editing… ALL aims to be a totalizing didactic experience.
The tangible outcome of the course of study will be the elaborations in the form of e-books, which will be published on the platform and disseminated through it. The best works will be rewarded by the popular vote on the platform (likes) and by a special jury of experts: 4 international groups will be awarded. The winners will be able to take part in a week-long scientific expedition to the Adriatic with Blue World: a chance to see in person the biodiversity they have studied and work on the identification of cetaceans.

Ravenna, 12 January 2018 – The kick off meeting of the European project ALL – Aquatic Life Lab took place today at Liceo Scientifico A. Oriani in Ravenna, in the presence of the representatives of institutions and secondary schools involved: FEEM – Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei, CivicaMente, Cetacea Onlus Foundation, Blue World Institute, Liceo Scientifico A. Oriani (Ravenna), Liceo Scientifico e Linguistico E. Vittorini (Gela), V. Gimnazija (Zagreb, Croatia) and Lykeio Apostolon Petrou & Pavlou (Limassol , Cyprus).
ALL is a strategic partnership project funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus Plus program, which was created to develop and share an innovative and inclusive educational model, aimed at promoting intercultural dialogue and a non-traditional approach to learning, while at the same time increasing awareness of the peculiarities of the marine environment and its precarious balance.
The initiative will develop over 3 years and will mobilize 160 students from the four partner schools on a journey that, working in transnational groups to promote cultural exchange, will lead them to a greater understanding of the connections between the elements that make up the ecosystem marine and the influence of the human footprint on its delicate dynamics.
The main impact of the project is the future application of this proven methodology in other schools, both at national and European level, as well as in other scientific fields, to affirm the ALL method, based on cooperation, participation and ICT-pedagogy, as a best practice of integration and support for traditional learning approaches.