Slovenian meeting was held under the project theme
“Between the Alps and the Mediterranean Sea”. Our activities On Monday, the
Slovenian students presented a play in terms of “tree stories”. It was a play
about people fighting against foresters who wanted to cut down trees.
On Monday morning we visited different lessons from
grades 1 to 9 and the kindergarten next to the school. On Monday afternoon we
visited Jeruzalem Nature Park and learned about the nature in our Pomurje
region. We learned about how people exploit the nature and live with it, for
instance we visited vineyards and had a presentation about cultivation in the
hills of Jeruzalem area. We also learned about economic aspects of such living
and exploitation.
On Tuesday, we visited the capitol of Ljubljana, which is
European green capitol city 2016 and learned about natural environments in
towns. We visited also the highest point in the centre of Ljubljana, the
Ljubljana castle.
We visited the Postojna caves with the famous Proteus,
which are both typical for Slovenia. At that time the Proteus expected young
ones. We also visited the interactive Expo exhibition and learned a lot about
the Slovenian Karst system, a system of underground caves, tunnels and water
streams with its own flora and fauna. Such ecosystem has huge impact on the
whole environment.
Since the theme of Slovenian meeting was “Nature Poems”,
we visited confluence of Soča River. We learned about poet Simon Gregorčič, who
wrote the famous “Soča” poem under the impressions of the 1st world war and the
battles that unfolded along the Soča River in the Soča valley, since they
demanded horrific numbers of deaths. We visited the river itself and the open
air museum Kolovrat from the 1st world war, which is devoted to all the
casualties from this war.
On Wednesday, we visited the salt pans in Strunjan and
the nature park there. We learned a lot about the flora and fauna in the park
and the life of workers on salt pans and how they make living out of it, which
was also in terms of “business story”.
On Thursday we had two joint lessons, one in the 3rd and
one in grades from 6 to 9. The 3rd graders learned about the Mura River and its
characteristics, e.g. animals and plants in and around it. Older students were
having a joint lesson with mathematics, geography, history, biology, languages
and IT. They had to hike through the forest, along the fields, solve different
tasks and orientate themselves with GPS tracking devices. In the afternoon,
students were part of a workshop where they built models, typical rafts for the
Mura River. After the workshop students and teachers we went to the river and
the local forester Janja Kelenc taught us a lot about the forest and its
characteristics. During the hike in the Mura forest we solved several tasks
from the areas of natural sciences, e.g. biology and mathematics. We also let
the rafts to flow down the river.
On Friday, we had a brainstorming event, a so-called
round table. The theme of the round table was “European integration and
challenges Europe is facing today in terms of climate changes”. Participants
were native and foreign teachers, one native and one foreign student, mag.
Mojca Dolinar from the Slovenian Environmental Agency, who presented climate
changes and their impacts on Europe, Slovenian Member of Parliament Jožef
Horvat and the chief of European Commission Representation Office in Slovenia,
mag. Zoran Stančič. Latter shared their opinions on European integration and
their views on youth exchange projects.
Video by Elena Gata Cano (Spanish student)