Wednesday  24th of January.

Our schedule today: A day outside of the school. Poznán city was waiting for us. And the start was literally very sweet. We visited Poznán´s only and true “Croissant museum”- what a treat! We learned not only how to make the most delicious croissants ever, we also got to know a good deal about the city´s history. The guides who at the same time were professional bakers were really amusing and had a lot of interesting stories to tell, not to mention all the advice they gave regarding the stuffed croissants.

Students were able to take part in the baking process, learning how to roll out the dough, cut triangles with a sword and squeeze out the very thick filling.

 

Rain, wind, and cold temperatures – nevertheless, we did not give in and participated in a sightseeing tour in the old town of Poznán. Luckily, we were to meet Marek, the same enjoyable guide who already had made our tram-trip an amusing experience the day before.

And he did not disappoint us this time ether. By choosing students to make his point clear what it meant to live in Poznán in former times his presentation of historical facts became somehow very illustrative and vivid. He put one of the students on the pedestal and let him play a convict in the Middle Ages.

Thus, he taught us how Poznán´s hangman professionally got his job done when chopping off the convict´s heads. We learned about the multicultural history of Poznán four hundred years ago and about the few months when Poznán was the capital of Poland ruled by a man who – untypically for that time – experienced real love and real hate in the relationship with his own wife, and managed to be the King of Poland, even though for only some months.

 

In the afternoon, we were invited to visit the city´s council and had the opportunity to hear about the city council and about the youth council.

One of the students from the school in Poznan, Julia, explained clearly what her role has been, and then we were able to watch the beginning of a session of the youth council. As this was in Polish, it was a little difficult to follow, but we saw that a presentation was made of a proposal about large advertisement boards, and that members of the council were able to comment and ask questions.

 

After this, we returned back to school.

 

Tuesday 23rd January


Today we had an early start, and had to be at school at 8 o'clock. The first point on the programme was a lecture by Bartosz Hordecki, PhD, who is a professor at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan. The title of the lecture was "The art of discussion in times of media civilisation" and he told us about how the use of digital media has changed the way we communicate, and how this affects the way we discuss.

This was to provide background for workshops on debating. During these workshops we learned about the rules of debating, self-presentation skills, persuasion and argumentative language.

We had to prepare arguments on an issue in groups and then some students presented the arguments. They were filmed, and given feedback on how effective they presented their arguments.

After lunch, we went out of school to catch a veteran tram, to og on a Bimba guided tour through the city. Our guide, Marek, gave us lots of interesting information about the buildings and areas that we passed, such as Malta, the artificial lake area, the imperial castle and the cathedral. We were all given a bag of envelopes and at regular intervals we opened an envelope. Here there were photos of old buildings, a potato, a fridge magnet with Poznan's goats, and a badge with the colours of Poland. At the terminus, the tram stopped and we were able to sit in the driver's seat and take photographs.

The tram took us back to school for 3pm where we were collected by our host families, and went off to eat dinner and take part in various activities.

Tuesday 23rd January


We will write about today shortly, but here are some pictures.

Project Week in Poznan, Poland

Monday 22nd January


After an evening with the host families, we met at school at 08.00. First we were divided into groups, and played some games to get to know each other, as the groups were made up of students from all the different countries. We made posters with our common interests, and had an activity to learn names. Then Ewelina introduced the project week and explained what we are going to do this week.

All the countries had orked on a task before travelling to Poland. They fuond out about how citizens, and especially young people, can get involved in decision making in their cities. They also took a survey of students and other citizens about areas in their city that could be improved. The results of the surveys and the other information were presented as a film made by each school. We watched all the films, and then worked in groups. We used the information from the surveys we made in our home cities to find common areas for each of the cities. Each Group chose one areas to work on, and we then made posters informing about these issues, for example pollution, public transport and clean energy,

Later in the day we had an international party where every school had brought some Food from their country. There was so much to choose from, for example, salmon, sausage and chocolate from Norway, pancakes, sausage and waffles from the Netherlands, sausage and bread from Germany, pirogs and salads from Poland, and cheese, quiche and cakes from Spain. There was a lot left for us to enjoy later in the week.

The Polish students had some entertainment for us, and they also taught us how to dance the Poloniase.

After the formal part of the evening, the DJ took over, and we all enjoyed an evening of dancing and socialising before heading home about 20.00

October 12 - 14 2017


Teachers' Meeting in Norway


The teachers from all the partner schools met in Norway. On the agenda was an evaluation of year two of the project, and planning the final year of the project.


The German team updated us on Project management issues and then the Dutch team went through the evaluation of the Project weeks in Amersfoort and on Nesodden. It was clear that the two project weeks were very successful in terms of both work completed and satisfaction of students and Teachers.
The Polish team outlined the programme for Poznan in January, and the Spanish team outlined the programme for the final project week on Ibiza in April. Pre-tasks for the Poznan week were also discussed.

Thursday 30th March

Today was a long day - we had a trip to Oslo and then, finally, we started to work on our projects.

We started the day by taking the ferry to Oslo in order to meet Yngve Hegrenes - an

architect responsible for management of transformation processes working in the Oslo municipality.

Although we were very excited for the trip, unfortunately, the weather greeted us with cold wind

and rain which made the walk a little more tiring.

We met our guide in the Oslo harbour and then we followed him to Studenterlunden. On the

way we discussed the experience of a car-free area and how creating a framework of development

of Oslo looks like. Then we admired the city layout

around the Royal Palace inspired by the ideas of

Enlightenment. It was a very inspiring and thought-

provoking lesson, especially that we were able to

hear a lot about how the architecture and space are

tied to the history of the city and the whole

Norwegian nation. We even had some time to walk

around the area and experience the importance of

harmony and order in city-planning.

Next, we walked around the Renaissance part of the

city, where we were able to see the difference

between the ideas behind city planning in the 1600s

and 1850s. It was really interesting to discover what

the reason behind the differences in the city tissue

is. We have also investigated the possible obstacles

which may occur during the introduction of a car

free area. How is the city going to manage the

deliveries? How are the inhabitants of these zones

going to commute? These are the problems that

have to be faced by city planners.

Another thing that we learned is how the priorities

change overtime and how the city planners have to adapt existing areas to new needs following the

example of Eidsvolls Plass. The City Government wants to create a greener and warmer city with

room for everyone. The life of the city shall be vibrant, the air cleaner and the arrangements for

pedestrians and cyclists better. A centre without cars shall be easily accessible and make more room

for life in the streets and pleasant meeting areas.

We finished the trip at Torggata, where we were introduced to the impact that different materials

have on the overall climax of the area. We admired some elements of cityscape like pot plants and

bike stops.

Later, with the heavy rain to accompany us, we ran to the ferry, which took us back to Nesodden.

To finish off the day, inspired by the three trips to Oslo, we started working on our projects. We

started drafting our plans for the area and made a framework for the next day.













In the evening we spent some time with our hosts, and some of us went to Oslo for the dinner and

other fun activities (e.g.: bowling!).

WEDNESDAY 29th March

During our 4th day in Norway we’ve visited its capital city
- Oslo. At 10 we were finally there, and could meet our
guide, who took us for a walk around Fjordbyen. We had a
chance to see Akershus fortress - a medieval castle that
was built to protect Oslo. It was king Christian IV who
had the castle modernised and converted into a
Renaissance castle and royal residence.



Then we visited a place broadly described in every
Norwegian guidebook - ‘ The Bank Square ‘. Also
called Bankplassen, it’s a square in the
neighbourhood Kvadraturen in Oslo, where the
Norges Bank and Engebret Cafe - a restaurant which
is well-known for the famous artists who have
frequently visited it, such as Henrik Ibsen and Edvard
Munch. Our guide talked about the purpose of the buildings that were there and how some of them have been repurposed over the years. She also showed us how some parts of the centre were from different eras. This was very interesting because it showed us that you don’t need to build new things in order to make a space useful again.



Around noon we’ve entered the Oslo Opera House
- the home of the Norwegian National Opera and
Ballet. The group was split in two smaller groups and we each went through the building. Everyone was astonished by the beauty of
this building - Tarald Lundevall, the man behind the
architecture of the Opera, most certainly did a
remarkable job.  The tour included an explanation of the choices that were made in relation to the architecture and the decoration. For example, the wood structure of the building wasn’t made by woodworkers, but by boatbuilders because they’re used to working with big structures.We were given an opportunity to go
behind the scenes and find out more about the work
of the opera’s employees. We even attended a
rehearsal of one of the shows which will soon be
officially performed.




After a lunch break we were walking along the Havnepromenaden, a walkway in the district of
Sørenga, guided by Jenny Ann Flø from Bymiljøetaten. She talked to us about a project she is involved with which involved using materials that could be reused in other places than Oslo. This was also very interesting because it taught us about durability of materials. In general, we thought the trip to Oslo was very educational and we picked up a lot of things to use in our own project.Having successfully caught a boat (whichwas not that obvious), we got back to our host families in Nesodden around 16.