European Professionals

Topic(s) addressed

• Learning through practice
• Non-formal education
• Modern school facilities
• Innovative vocational training
• Maintenance of urban green spaces
• Renewable energy training and promoting
• Developing Key Competencies

Target groups

Students:

• 20 landscape design
• 20 construction
• 12 renewable energy
• 2  HVAC
• 12 vocational training teachers

Methodologies

• The participants (teachers and students) set up a didactic garden with a wide range of ornamental and useful plants on the school patio. 
• Landscape design and construction students maintain the garden. 
• They learnt teamwork, task planning and time management and tried out their landscape design ideas. 
• This year within the „Green ZST” project they started a vegetable garden and vertical gardens - green walls covered with creeping plants. Students also modelled a small green roof and opened a plant shelter. 

https://fiat.fm/info/zielone-zst/

Environments

ZST supports innovative learning by means of:

• adding subjects on ecology to the curriculum (Sustainable buildings in cities, Circular Economy)
• projects in cooperation with local authorities and institutions
• adjusting teachers' timetables for teaching in the school garden or outside the school
• making use of school premises so that students can practice plant and tree keeping and setting up planters, benches, boxes etc.
• creative disseminating of projects results (a contest for a mural design depicting a project logo and its opening ceremony)

Teachers

• ZST team of teachers initiates a lot of projects in and outside the school. 
• By sharing their knowledge acquired during mobility they aim to perfect vocational training methods and improve school facilities. 
• 60% of our teachers have had experience in international cooperation, which resulted in the following initiatives:
• acquiring funds for teaching equipment (Fuel Cell Sets, plumbing equipment, drawing tables)
• organizing practical training in cooperation with employers and higher education institutions
• doing landscaping projects for the local community
• running ecological contests for local schools (My Energy, Energy-efficient House, Colors of Spring)

Impact

• In the school garden students work in a professional team and they practice all aspects of their job: designing, planting, placing boxes etc. 
• Teachers use their skills to run projects outside the school. https://zst.czest.pl/przedszkolaki-maja-ogrod-dydaktyczny/
• They also created a sensory garden for children with special educational needs. https://zst.czest.pl/ogrod-sensoryczny-w-zespole-szkol-specjalnych-nr-2…
• Guided by their teachers, students share their knowledge with the youth from primary schools during workshops (solar panels demonstrations, connecting pipes, cutting plants, bricklaying).