An international meeting of students and teachers from Iceland, Slovenia, Sweden and Estonia took place in Prague from February 3rd to February 9th2019. Their visit was part of the Erasmus + KA2 project – Projects of Cooperation in School Education.
The main topic of our two-year project is “Brownfields and Sustainable Development”. Since September, a group of 35 students of Ecology and Environmental Protection from all grades have been conducting surveys of brownfields in Prague and its surroundings in their free time. The aim of this project is to raise public awareness of the issue of devastated, abandoned or improperly used land. Within two years, meetings will be held in each of the participating country and we were the first to organize such event. It was a challenge for us because we have no experience with a similar type of project. On Sunday February 3rd our students picked up their foreign visitors at the airport. They had already known, who would be their guest for the week.
On Monday we started off the week with an official welcome at our school, where Veronika Vávrová from the class 3.B welcomed everybody dressed in the Czech folk costume with fresh bread and salt. Together with her classmate Kateřina Hojsáková they sang several folk songs. After a short tour of the school, we had traditional roast tenderloin with dumpling and cream sauce for lunch in the school canteen and then set out for a walk through the centre of our capital. In addition to Prague sightseeing, we visited the ZOO, the Museum of Prague Waterworks in Podolí and the glassworks in Nižbor during the week. Moreover, every day we devoted some time to discussions about our project. We took a walk with Mr. Šturma, the biggest brownfield expert in our country, who showed us some interesting places in the vicinity of the school and on the other side of the Vltava river. Since we are the only schools that offers Ecology as a branch of study, our task was to use our laboratories for practical analysis; during the week we carried out a microbiological and chemical analysis of water, soil and air. For most foreign students, it was the first time they tried working in a lab. On Wednesday we spent the day with members of the hunting club in the surroundings of Malé Hraštice, where they showed us how to take care of the hunting grounds; they are experts in their field and their skills and knowledge were awarded in the past. In the afternoon we climbed to the top of Skalka nearby Mníšek pod Brdy, where everyone could see a reconstructed baroque church which was undermined and destroyed in the past; nowadays, the place is very popular with people from the nearby town – they spend their free time there, go for walks etc. Then on Friday afternoon we threw a goodbye party in one of our classrooms – we talked about all the experiences, looked at amazing photos from the whole week and everybody made their own pizza and baked plum jam pastry in the school bakery.
We enjoyed nice weather during the whole week, there was even a bit of snow and a blue sky – Prague looked fabulous in such weather. On Saturday our students took their new friends to the airport and ended our challenging week. Most of our students considered the whole week a success; only a few of them experienced some problems with communicating in English. We are already looking forward to the programme that will be prepared for us in Estonia, where a group of 4 students will travel in mid-May.