Erasmus+ project

#BeGreen 5F: Friendly Fair Food For Future

2020-1-DE03-KA229-077334_2
February 12-18, 2023
Darmstadt, Germany

Bianca-Andreea Ciobanu
Răzvan-Iulian Căliman
Economic College "Ion Ghica" Bacău, Romania

Between February 12-18, 2023, the third mobility of the #BeGreen 5F: Friendly Fair
Food for Future project took place in Darmstadt, Germany, where our school was
represented by the students Bianca-Andreea Ciobanu (XIIth A ) and Răzvan-Iulian
Căliman (12th D), accompanied by dr.adj. Prof. Gabriel Gabor and Prof. Daniela
Anghel. Along with the Romanian students, students from another 4 partner schools
participated:
 • Heinrich-Emanuel-Merck-Schule (HEMS) Darmstadt, Germany – coordinating
school,
 • Maltepe Fen Lisesi, Istanbul, Turkey,
 • Zespol Szkol Mechanicznych nr 2, Krakow, Poland
 • Institute D'educación Secundària Vall D'hebron, Barcelona, Spain.
As part of this mobility, students and guest teachers visited the host school (digital
school rally), attended biology, chemistry, programming classes, participated in a
series of activities dedicated to the project such as:
▶presentation of the project platform and the application by the coordinating team
(Germany),
▶testing it in the meeting together with the students participating in the project,
connected through Microdoft Teams from home (checking the functionality of orders,
uploading recipes, presenting gardens and local producers, general feedback)
▶the presentation by the Spanish team of the templates for the cookbook with
particularities for each country in order to create the cookbook in physical format
visiting the local farm Hofgut Oberfeld where information was presented related to:
the history of the farm over time, the organization of the farm (personnel, tasks,thing),
methods of ecological breeding of animals and birds and of valorization of the
products obtained from / from them, making plots available to be rented to natural
persons (about 300) who want to work them and harvest what cultivation, the
presentation of the farm shop and the products sold
▶study visit to Frankfurt: Botanical garden, urban gardens, visiting the local market
and presentation of products specific to the area, but also of traditional dishes (Grüne
Sauce)
and workshops in which they tested different online platforms for interactive work for
students and teachers (Kahoot, Plickers, etc.)

Participating in the project has brought us many benefits from a personal and
professional point of view, starting with what we learned at school about creating an
ecological garden, preserving / preparing the harvested products, making an
application, until putting it into practice in a collaborative, multicultural and
plurilingual framework of these things that can be useful to us in the future. Also,
such experiences are absolutely necessary for any student who is preparing to make a
decision related to the future career because it brings terms of comparison, widens the
options for the future and makes you set priorities according to what expectations you
have in life.

What did I learn more in this mobility?

First of all I came into contact with the German dual technical education system
working on our joint Erasmus + project #BeGreen in a €80 million rebuilt school. We
were presented with the specializations, the ways of approaching some subjects where
we were able to visit the classrooms, the fact that the school has a very large number
of students (approximately 1200). We particularly liked the general atmosphere which
is relaxed, calm, peaceful, both in the school and in the classroom, the very cordial
teacher-student relationship, almost barrier-free, the very wide, modern, well-
organized interior spaces, with the timetable displayed at the entrance to the school –
distribution of classrooms, substitute teachers, space dedicated to lost objects, for
study or free time, library, canteen (with 4 menu options), smoking area in the school,
modern office equipped with a fully equipped kitchen, walls of glass through which
you can see inside the classrooms. We also noticed the discipline in the school, the
ethnic and religious diversity that does not prevent relationships with others, but
which reminded us that it is necessary to know foreign languages and to adapt to new
communication situations in languages other than the mother tongue.

What did I learn more in this mobility?

The host school, Heinrich-Emanuel-Merck-Schule (HEMS), fits perfectly into the
spirit of Darmstadt, a cosmopolitan and open-minded city (96% destroyed during
WWII, but rebuilt after 1950 ), where we felt safe in public regardless of the time,
where public transport is very well organized and traffic rules are respected, cycling /
walking / public transport, selective recycling and games are encouraged luckily they
are not promoted.
Staying at the hostel (DJH Youth Hostel Darmstadt), for us it was a unique,
multilingual experience (we socialized with students from other countries, real not
virtual, we made new friends), free of prejudices. To all this we can add the
diversified culinary experience, both traditional German and international.
The most surprising moment in this mobility was definitely the cancellation of the
flight because
the strike of the Lufthansa company which blocked 7 international airports in
Germany (including Frankfurt) and canceled the scheduled flights on February 17,
which caused the return to the country to be rescheduled for February 18, 2023. An
interesting experience in which we had to find solutions to get home safely.

In conclusion, we recommend participating in Erasmus projects, because it is a

different learning opportunity, where you can evaluate yourself in relation to others
and from which you can only gain, both professionally and personally.
We thank the coordinators in our school and the partner schools for the opportunity!