Trip to Latvia

View in the plane


Our lunch in Riga

Sigulda

Kathi

dancing traditional folklore

sitting around the fire

The sport teams in action

Barbecue at Baiba's family

Visiting Riga

22^nd of June – a nice Sunday morning at the Vienna Airport: The group consisting of 6 students and two teachers assembled at the entrance - the adventure of travelling to Latvia has started.
At Riga Airport the students and teachers of the Dikli school awaited as – together we headed to lunch – a nice experience in an amazing leisure area.
We visited the national park of the Gauje (with the center of Sigulda) and continued our journey to Dikli. Our students stayed with families - and after an hour every student has found his family.
Midsummer night - an event all of us wanted to enjoy - was georgous. We learned how to braid wreaths of flowers and oak leaves as preparation for the feast at night. Furthermore we got to know typical customs concerning folklore - dances - songs. After lunch we visited Konu mill – where we spent the whole evening. There we were able to watch a woman producing cheese, were envolved in folksy dances and had dinner together. Later, at night we sat around the midsummer night fire while we were enjoying the nice landscape and had much fun together.
Tuesday morning - mixed teames of our two schools run series of competitions in their gym at school. Right after lunch we were invited to visit Baiba's family and spent a funny afternoon there with having barbecue, playing darts or table tennis and other stuff.
The whole Wednesday our program consisted of the visit of Riga and a short trip to the seaside. The capital is a quite beautiful city - especially the renovated center of the town with a lot sight seeing highlights.
At late afternoon we stopped at a stormy beach of the Baltic Sea and had much fun with our experience "wet legs and trousers".
Finally, our trip ended at Thursday morning. However we weren't able to reach Vienna without any problems: Heavy traffic at Vienna Airport caused by hundreds of Russian jets bringing visitors to a game during the European Championship made it more difficult for us to reach Austria at the expected time.

Dikli pupils in cottage „Saulgozi”

On May 13^th Jura Neikena Dikli Elementary school’s Comenius team visited cottage „Saulgozi” in Vidzeme, Valmieras region.

A cotage on a country homestead is situated 30 km from Valmiera. There are rooms for guests on the 1^st floor of the hosts’ house: a Twin and DBL room, a living room with a fireplace, TV and extra beds, a dining room, shower and WC and country sauna where it’s possible to steam and flap oneself with birch-twigs (www.celotajs.lv/saulgozi). Near the farm is small, but nice pond. In the surrounding are places for tents.

We were welcomed by the hostess Vineta Goncare who showed us her cottage and surrounding. She told us about all the possibilities in her cottage and pointed out that they have green sertificat which means environmental protection.
During our visit pupils made some interviews and they found out that the country house „Saulgozi” has:

• Environment friendly behaviour code exposed for guests in the house
• Locally produced products which are offered for guests
• Environmental and health friendly materials which are used in buildings
• The buildings are in harmony with the local landscape
• Natural tableware
• Waste management according to the local regulations
• Cooperation with local producers of food
• Possibility to watch rabbits
• Careful attitude to things.

At the end of our visit host Vineta offered us refreshments-birch sap and rhubarb jelly which were very tasty.
During this visit pupils learned how important it is to remember rules about specially protected natural teritories.

Coordinator of Project, Vija Skuja

Trip to Verona

Peter visited the Don Milano School in Verona to bring some new impacts into the project.

There were three presentations for different school classes about Wiener Neustadt and tourism in general.

Some of the participating students will enter the project the coming school year, others will leave (because they have finished their school career at Don Milano).

This meeting will be the start the phase of overlapping project work – special joint activities concerning topics like nature parks, water problem and others.

Visit from Verona

40 pupils of the Don Milano School from Verona visited the BG Babenbergerring in Wiener Neustadt. The pupils were welcomed by students from the department of informatics (7B) and got a guided tour though school.
Nora and the 3D class performed a special sports activity together with the Italian students. They had a lot of fun together for two hours – it was exciting to watch the students.

Another interesting activity for the Italians was to participate at special lessons – CLIL and English lessons. The Italian pupils were split into 5 groups, for each of them cared two Austrian students (the 6B Specials).
After lunch at McDonalds finally the pupils hat a guided tour through Wiener Neustadt. It was a pity that we had such bad weather – it was raining and cold – not the best conditions for the guests from the south.

There is a picture album at Picasa, where you can find about 100 pictures.

Interview - Report from Adeje

On April 26th Antonio Méndez (Headmaster of the Colegio Costa Adeje) and Nuria Marrero (Project manager at the same school) had an interview at the radio station “Radio Ecca” whose program “Educational Community” (Comunidad Educativa) is broadcast all over the Canary Islands. There, we had the opportunity to talk about the project “Tourism and Environment”, the schools we are working with, and the activities we are developing in our school at the moment. Furthermore, we insisted on the main objectives of the project which are to improve students’ skills in new technologies and foreign languages.

Activity "Sea Environment"- Report from Adeje

One of the activities carried out last April at the Colegio Costa Adeje was organized by El Cabildo de Tenerife, which is something like the government of the island. It focuses on making students aware of how important and, at the same time how fragile, the sea is for us. The activity comprised Kindergarden, primary and secondary school students. It was carried out at school, most of the activities happened in their rooms.

At Kindergarden level, the activities basically focused on identification of different kinds of fish, and the problems fish can have due to the garbage in the sea (they showed things that disrespectful people usually leave on the beach: cigarette butts, plastic bottles, cans,…). Then, the children painted fish, and they decorated their rooms with them.

The activities with Primary school students focused on improving their knowledge of fish. They had to make jigsaw puzzles, guessing games, they learnt about how some fish need others to live (symbiosis), what things we do that affect their existence.

The Secondary school students attended different lectures about the sea we have in the islands, trying to show it as a source of life and resources. The lecture also dealt with the threats it has and how we can help to save it and keep it alive. We hope you find it interesting!

Cleaning beaches - Report from Adeje

On Thursday 24th October the students of 3º ESO of the Colegio Costa Adeje went to the beach “El Puertito de Adeje” with the purpose of cleaning it and becoming aware of the necessity of keeping the coasts in good condition. El Puertito is a little beach located in Costa Adeje, ten minutes away from the city centre. It offers its visitors peace and quiet since it is not very well-known.

In the beginning they listened carefully to a speech given by Sergio Pastor, their Biology teacher. He spoke about the rubbish which is usually found on beaches, where it comes from, how long it takes to disappear and how it affects the sea environment.Then the students spent some time picking up the rubbish they found on the beach, which mostly consisted of cans, tins, bottles, plastic bags, cigarette butts and construction materials like iron sticks.Finally the students also had the opportunity to relax and enjoy the rest of the time swimming and lying down under the sun.