In a first phase, the EU-Project concerns measuring weather and environmental data (temperature, air pressure, air humidity, amount of rain, pH-value of the rain water, but also electrical smog, noise level and energy consumption of the school), processing the data through electronic media (computer and Internet) and sending them to our partner schools in Athens and Schwechat / Vienna. The data are collected on a regular basis by students of various grade and course levels on the roof of the school, near or in the school building. They are filled into electronic lists, processed through computer software and forwarded by e-mail or through the Internet. The center of interest, on one hand, are the scientific facts, e.g. the sometimes strange fluctuations in the temperature measurements, or the difficulties in measuring a noise level. But on the other hand, it is also important to show the meaning of certain scientific data, e.g. whether the measured numbers for electrical or magnetic fields are a health problem or not, whether the weather in Frankfurt does more funny things than in Athens, whether a school wastes or saves energy . Furthermore, one of the central concerns of the program is the annotation, comparison and discussion of the data and their meaning, by the students and the participating schools. Our long term goal is to enter into an exchange of ideas using the environmental data as an example but going beyond a simply technical discussion: What happens in our environment? What are the consequences of the ways we are acting? Will we have to change our every-day behavior in the future? Does the well-known phrase "Think globally - act locally" thus have a real meaning for us? Furthermore, within a Europe that is growing together, it can be interesting make teachers and students of different cultural backgrounds cross borders of cities and countries, in order to talk to each other about every-day issues, to compare values, and to develop common strategies for the future. And we do not mean only environmental problems, but also other interdisciplinary issues such as tourism or traffic. The Universities of Frankfurt, Vienna and Athens help to advise and evaluate the project. The project is in part financed by the European Union (which means a lot of bureaucratic work ). But we have not reached the point we have just described. For the time being, several classes, courses and teachers still contribute to the first phase of the project on various levels: The weather station on the roof of the school is being organized by Mr. Kaltschnee and Mr. Wolf together with their 11th grades. The weather measurements are being performed by students of the classes 7c, 8d, 9a, 10d, 10e, 11a, d, e and the 12 "Basic Physics". Several students of the 8e process the data on the computer together with Mr.Ely. Mailing the data to Schwechat and Athens is Ms. Sutter's job. A group of students from the 7c, 8d, 10a and 11b prepare the new home page of the FvS-school on the computer. Mr. Koehler with his 12 "Advanced English" helps with working out things in the Internet in English; and the 7c discusses the weather measurements with Mr. Albert in their physics course. One of these days, a 11course "Geography" will go on excursion to Offenbach to visit the National German Weather Services, in order to fill in some lacking data (missing because of holidays) from their archives. And finally, Mr. Yalin, our janitor, helps us by regularly reading the meters to check the energy consumption of our school.

Of course there are still some problems and difficulties:

Among the various students involved at our school, the communication about their experiences in the project is just beginning, and the main concern, that is, to develop an communication system between the students in Frankfurt, Athens and Schwechat and make them discuss the data and their meanings, has still to be realized. Many details are also being prescribed by the school in Athens (which is the coordinator of the program), and all people involved first have to learn to agree on common methods and goals.  The fact that all contacts between the partners have to happen more or less exclusively in English, gives quite some head-ache to some students (and teachers). Furthermore, the installation and the right use of the computers and the software have been rather tough for many of us.

Despite all this, the first phase is much fun for all those involved. In can be equally exciting to do scientific measurements in small groups (while facing a crazy barometer!) and try to present them graphically, as to present the whole Freiherr-vom-Stein-Schule through image and text on a home page. Are other schools going to "click" on us in the Internet in order to find out more about our School? What could "they" want to know about us? And it can be really fun to e-mail or to "chat" in English with Greek students without being immediately corrected by a red fountain-pen.

The intensive work on the computer, with well-known programs like WORD or EXCEL, as well as the chance to go by mouse-click and Internet to Athens or Vienna, are a big learning experience and an adventure at the same time.

Addendum: In our own school, until now especially the subjects Physics, Computer Education and English have been involved. For the next phases, other subjects are going to be needed, such as Social Sciences, Geography, Ethics, and others.
(Fuchsia, Stutter, Koehler, Albert)
 

<< Previous Page

---