Meeting in Marseille

Vom 19. 11. bis 23.11.2008 waren vier Schüler und zwei Lehrer der Beruflichen Schule Ostvorpommern aus Wolgast zu ihren Projektpartnern nach Marseille unterwegs.
Das Comeniusprojekt „New Energy Technologies“ wird von der Europäischen Union für die Wolgaster Schule in einem Zeitraum von zwei Jahren mit einem größeren Geldbetrag gefördert.
Mit vor Ort in Marseille waren, neben den Wolgastern, die dortige Berufsschule Lycee l`estaque sowie die Rumänische Partnerschule aus Buzau.
In zahlreichen Begegnungen und Erkundungen wurden neue Energietechnologien thematisiert. Ebenfalls zur Sprache kam das Thema Atomenergie. Es war herauszuhören, dass auch französische Bürger zunehmend an Fragen der diesbezüglichen Sicherheit interessiert sind. Die Nordeuropäer, so auch die Deutschen, gelten dort als besonders fortschrittlich bezüglich innovativer Energietechniken.
Die beiden Wolgaster Schülerinnen hielten einen Vortrag zum Thema Elektroauto, also ein Thema welches nun auch die Deutsche Autoindustrie entdeckt hat. Die meist männlichen jungen Berufsschüler verfolgten Vortrag und Präsentation mit großem Interesse.
Die beiden mitgereisten Tischlerlehrlinge werden das Grundgerüst eines energieeffizienten Miniaturhauses erstellen. Dieses Haus soll dann von den Partnerschulen weiter ausgestattet werden.
Die Franzosen erwiesen sich als ausgesprochen gute Gastgeber. So lernte man nebenbei französisches Wohnen und besonders französische Küche kennen
Die Stadt Buzau liegt hinter den Karpaten. Dorthin wird es im nächsten Frühjahr per Reisebus gehen. Dann ist eine Wolgaster Schülergruppe zu Gast bei den international sehr aktiven Partnern des dortigen Technical College Buzau, der größten High School der Stadt.
In der weiteren Planung gibt es im Herbst 2009 ein Partnertreffen im Austragungsort Wolgast. Hier sollte die regionale Wirtschaft zu Fragen der Energietechniken ein wichtiges Thema werden.
Im Frühjahr 2010 wird, dann wieder in Marseille, in einem Abschlusstreffen ein Fazit des Projektes gezogen.

°°°IT'S COMING HOME°°°

Now, they are back in Germany
and it's sure they have told to somebody!
A few days in Marseille, such a nice time,
the project of COMENIUS was the prime.

They will talk about their chore,
what they do and looking for.
They will talk about the people and other schools,
and they will tell us something about the rules!

Maybe there are new friendships yet,
perhaps it's possible to see again in chat?!
The project will go on, that's cocksure,
because life is learning pure!!!

LET'S START

The time is over, it's nearly a year,
now we can call us maybe by dear.
Our project is important, for me and for you,
that is why we should something do!
We should work hand in hand, just together,
nothing disturbs, also not the weather...

Comenius project spent us some money,
all the involved people smile, they are funny.
They are happy to get to know better,
maybe we can write some penpal letter?!
We can be friends, for now and ever,
asap, we will work together.

Our project is called "New energy at home",
with this work, you aren't alone.
It's important for the really next time,
the earth will be better, the sun will shine.
So let us show, that the money was spent well,
let us ring the project-starting-bell!!!


Ulrike Grimm

Donation confirmed

Today we got the confirmation for the donation. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are 11 schools who got a positive answer from the national agency in Bonn after the comenius application for multilateral partnerships.

So we as a school can be happy to check in 20000,-€.

What can we do with that money? We will learn much more about new energy technologies. And we will see our partners. Pupil groups will travel to France and Romania and we will host our guests from there.

Unfortunately our partners from Slovakia didn´t get the permission. We hope we can get them involved someway.

A time to make friends

Europe´s Day, May 09 2008

Today we undertook our first video conference with new energy partner schools. Our Romanian partners from Buzau, Madalina and Robert as initiators, and we as the German school from Wolgast were "United in Diversity" for nearly two school hours on Europe´s Day, May 09 2008. For some minutes we had a Portuguese school in the conference.
The technical quality was not perfect, the acoustic made some problems, but all in all it was a great experience and a success to hear and to see each other life per internet with skype. Our pupils had some small talk about different aspects of personal and school life and Europe was also a theme.
In Germany we were two groups, in Romania there were four pupils and some teachers involved in the conference.
Next step could be an exchange of e-mail addresses to intensify discussions. May be there could be also some pupils to write an article on this blog. Try it. To invite you we need your e-mail adress ... .
And last but not least we hope to see each other in autumn or spring.

And her(e) the poem written by Ulrike for the purpose of Europe´s Day 2008:

Hello, we are from Germany, we love renewable energy.
We want to have a clean world now, our parents said wow,wow,wow.

Plants are not only energy pure, but they can help us - we are sure,
to get a cleaner, better earth, the money we´ll safe can stay in our purse.

With this money we can buy other things - one minute, stop the telefone rings.
It´s a call from farmer Hannibals, he had some greets from his animals.

They said: Thank you for the clean air, they think that it is very fair.
If Germany, Romania and France, everybody has the same chance.

So let give us our hands - let us become good friends !

Pictures here:
http://www.ejournal.fi/lapcom22/index.php?action[]=IArticleShow::showArticle(31716)

Final Foto in class FGW61

Today were the last two lessons about renewable energy. We have learned a lot and next week we do a test about the subject concerning all eleven themes.

During the lessons we were most impressed by Richard and Tilman with their subject wave energy. This was because it was the best prepared lesson and they were very enthusiastic and knew everything about wave energy.

Ethanol- A renewable fuel

The students in grade 12 of the German Economic High School in Wolgast have started a new project, where they broach the issue of alternative energy in their geography lessons. We tasked ourselves with categories like solar-, windenergy, hybrid cars or electric cars. How can we help our environment to protect it from the climate change? We asked ourselves how the future of our world can address the challenge of controlling atmospheric emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases, that causes for instance gasoline?

One topic was ethanol fuel as a gasoline alternative, which is a sustainable resource. Actually ethanol is a liquid alcohol that consists carbon, hydrogen and oxygen and can be produced from any biological feedstock, for instance corn, barley, sugar cane, cereal grain or wheat, and cellulose materials such as agricultural and wood wastes. Basically it is intended to provide a more environmentally and economically friendly alternative to fossil fuels such as diesel and gasoline. The ethanol production started in Brazil, where it is widely used in cars as a fuel. Now in these times ethanol is a common alternative renewable fuel in North America, India, China, Europe, which have started to extend their production as well. After researches we found out that there are many controversial debates surrounding the environmental friendliness of ethanol, and the production. There a many advantages connected with ethanol fuel, for example it can be combined with gasoline at different percentages, or can be used in its pure form as E100. An other good point is that proponents argue that ethanol is a solution of not depending on oil imported from other countries, and that we can be independent of the oil crisis. But still ethanol isn't a future hold, many problems are discovered with the increased supply and use of ethanol. The deforestation of the rainforest in Brazil; the increased poverty problems because of recently high prices for basic groceries or the wastefulness of water are some of the issues which make difficulties. These facts support the argumentation of many opponents that ethanol isn't more economically friendly compared to fossil fuels. Ultimately, the competition between fuels in the marketplace and government policies will determine the role of ethanol and will decide if ethanol could be really an answer for alternative energy.

written by Ina Diedrich and Jennifer Kuttner

Application 2008

The Comeniusproject New Energy Technologies at Home will begin in august 2008 and it will last for two years. But this will happen only if we get the grant.
Now we have filled in the application form and we are within the deadline which is 15. february 2008. So we hope all four schools you can see on the right side of this blog will be participants of the project.
If we get the grant then we have some money to travel a bit and to do some new energy work. It is planned to have four meetings one in each school over the time.
One important part will be the assembling of a miniature-new-energy-house.

Comeniusaspects

Integration into learning and/or other ongoing activities

There are mainly two kinds of pupils participation in the German school.
There are pupils who work on the preparation and production of some technical utilities especially the miniature house. These pupils come from the school fields of “profession preparation”. To work manually with technical devices is very important and the main task within this kind of schooling. So it is a good opportunity to use these abilities in such a project. Another aspect is the use of some real new energy devices for using on the school ground.
The other involved pupils do their university access exam at our school. Their work in the project contains the research, planning and economic implementation of the various technical devices which we use. They work about it in different subjects within the subjects curriculum, especially in Economic Geography about the theme resources of the earth. Other subjects are Physics, Economics and English. They do the implementation of our wind, solar and geothermal energy systems into our miniature house from the monetary point of view. They search for the best economic solutions in the use of new energy technologies.
This search should not be limited from the beginning because there is a chain of technologies in the field. If you have a house you need some good new energy car for example.
These pupils do the work in the regular curriculum in two groups over a time of some month and some ours per week. Over the time there will be six learning groups involved. They will be doing also the final printed material as one result of our cooperation.
When the mobilities take place with a meeting in our school of course there will be included some more pupils of our school from different courses, classes and fields into the preparation work and the cultural exchange of that project.

Dissemination and use of results

The most important aspect of the whole project will be the general realization that European and individual energy problems can be solved by new energy technologies. This can be shown and propagated within the participating schools as well as in the local communities by our whole project. The taking part of a large number of students with high quality contribution is the first and most important step to communicate these ideas.
Within our schools we have many dissemination areas to use. There will be classes, conferences, meetings, exhibitions, posters, webspace.
In the local community we will find dissemination through cooperation with parents, local companies, excursions, newspaper articles, our websites and other also printed materials.
The working together with some larger new energy companies and universities will be elaborated, but will be as such a part of the project. Within this framework is the analyzing of the labor market of new energy as a means of helping develop our pupils future and give the companies access to qualified workforce.

Teachersmeeting during preparatory visit in Nove Zamky January 24-27/2008

themes for 2008 in class FGW61

Adriana/ Maria - geothermic energy
Sarah/ Franziska - new energy on the labour market
Julia/ Laura - storage of energy
Felix/ Sebastian - electric and hybrid cars
Robert/ Sven - solar energy
Max/ Frank - warm pumps
Richard/ Tilman - wave energy
Elisa/ Gerd - wind energy
Lisa/ Kristina - biogas
Jessica/ Katharina - water power
Robert/ Christian - tidal power

New energy in geography

New energy
has been a theme in our geography course for several years under the wider context of resources of the earth.

Why became it a special theme and may be a passion for the teacher and some pupils?
We don´t have to go too far to find the reason. For example only a headline: oil crisis. The price of oil per barrel went from $15 to nearly $100 in only a couple of years. We find many other headlines, currently all media speak of climate change.

But there are not only horror news. If you observe the theme new energy you can find some positiv signals. In our home federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in the northeast of Germany 30% of electricity is made from windpower meanwhile. There are many companies who produce new energy equipment for example wind turbines and solar panels. That means less unemployment, more jobs, some money to have a living.
Okay, many of it is pushed by the state. There are subsidies, paid by the electricity consumer, who has to pay it, whether he wants it ore not. And so he subsidies not only the german industry but also a large part of the chinese solar industry. If Mrs. Merkel knows that?

Nevertheless, there are many new kinds of energy, connected with technology, which could give us some hope in the longing for power. There are so many ideas in the field you can really make a hobby out of it, or even a job.

In our courses we treat the usual themes as wind power, offshore windpower, photovoltaic, solarthermic energy, geothermal energy, use of biomass, biogas, bio diesel, ethanol. From time to time you can change the topic a little bit. This year there is the first time a topic about electric cars and hybrid cars, to be produced by two girls who are interested in it and do a lecture and a poster about it.
A big theme is also energy storage in a wider sense because storage is important when energy is delivered unregularly depending on weather conditions or storage for transportation. You can store it in a battery, in a waterboiler or even in the underground and so on.
An exotic theme, for some newcomers at least, was last year new energy on the stock exchange.

teacher from wolgast