FOURTH PROJECT MEETING IN GERMANY

New friends, lots of activities and fun for the delegation of Italian students who participated in the fourth Comenius project meeting in Kirchheim from 7 to 11 February.

The Jakob Friedric Shollkopf Schule in Kirchheim welcomed all the delegations from the various European partner schools and the students presented the interviews they made at the Employment Centres and to a private employer in their areas.

They also had the chance to know one important tool the European Union has created to help students and young people to study and work in Europe: the EURES portal.

To understand the importance of the Europass CV and of speaking English, the participants simulated a job interview in pairs and then acted it out for their partners.

Finally they visited Stuttgart and, in particular, the Mercedes-Benz Museum, the multicoloured spice market and its most important squares.

Next meeting will take place in Rovigo and it will be the last for this Comenius Project!

I.I.S "E. DE AMICIS" IN SUPPORT OF BIODIVERSITY

On Wednesday, 24 November 2010 I.I.S. "E. De Amicis" organised two conferences for some classes of second-form students on an important issue, biodiversity and the environment.

The speaker was Ms Silvia Baldiotti, one of the Young European Ambassadors participating in a Project launched by the Italian Representation of the European Commission in Italy.

During the meetings, the speaker presented a survey of the main stages of the creation of the EU, the Lisbon Treaty and then of the policies adopted by the EU to tackle the issue of the protection of the environment and the preservation of biodiversity.

THIRD COMENIUS PROJECT MEETING IN IASI

From Monday 18 to friday 22 October the partners of the "Knowing me, you, us" Comenius Project met in Iasi (Romania) for the third project meeting.

Students and teachers from Italy, Portugal, France, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic were hosted by the two Romanian partner schools - Grup Scolar Economic de Turism and Grup Scolar "Mihail Sturzda" - in the beautiful and friendly city of Iasi.

There the students worked together, monitored by their teachers, to carry out the project activities and then visited the city and its surroundings on Thursday.

One of the best events during the meeting was the Show held at the school theatre where hosting students danced some traditional Romanian dances and invited their European guests to join in.

The farewell party was organised at a local restaurant and everybody enjoyed themselves, after a simple but significative ceremony during which attendance certificates and presents were offered to the guests.

ETWINNING: A PROJECT TO LEARN FRENCH

Hello everyone,

here is a short presentation of another European project, called ETwinning, in which a group of second-class students are participating in order to improve their language competence in French.

ETWINNING: Un projet pour apprendre le français.

Le 25 novembre notre classe a participé pour la première fois au projet linguistique "Etwinning". Il est organisé par notre école en collaboration avec notre professeur de français.

En particulier notre projet s'appelle "Apprendre en chattant" et il encourage les élèves à communiquer en français avec les professeurs et les élèves des écoles ètrangères qui sont inscrites.

Il a eu lieu dans une salle de classe équipée pour la communication en visio-conférence.

Le sujet de cette séance était le système éducatif italien par rapport à l'enseignement des langues vivantes: les langues que nous étudions, les principaux projets linguistiques que notre école, l'I.T.C. "E. De Amicis", propose aux étudiants.

D'autres rendez-vous sont au programme sur d'autres sujets, comme les traditons de Noel, les loisirs des jeunes.

C'est un projet intéressaant et très instructif qui a enrichi nos connaissances en langue française.

CELEBRATING THE EUROPEAN DAY OF LANGUAGES

The "E. De Amicis" Institute celebrated the cultural and linguistic richness of Europe participating in the manifold series of initiatives which took place all over Europe before and after September 26th, the date chosen by the Council of Europe and the European Union to raise awareness about the importance of language learning.

Every year this anniversary, known as the European Day of Languages, is celebrated in almost all the 47 countries, members of the Council of Europe, with events such as seminars, conferences, performances, which are held before and after September 26th.

Our school participated with a show of songs, called "Languages in Music", sung by our students in the different foreign languages taught and learnt in the Institute, in English, German, Spanish and French, but also in Chinese, thanks to Lin Xuan, a Chinese student of class 5^ A Erica.

OFF TO A GOOD START!!

The 2010/2011 school year has just started and lots of activities have been proposed to our students: conferences, language courses at school and abroad, work placement in our province and ... European projects like the "Knowing me, you, us" Comenius project, Europa Ludens and the Students' European Parliament!
We wish both students and teachers a fruitful school year!

OUR COUNTRY, OUR REGION: OUR FUTURE IN EUROPE

Hello everybody,

before saying goodbye to all of you and going on holidays, some students of 2^A Erica collected some photos of Rovigo and its province, Polesine, and added short descriptions to introduce our town and our area to their European partners collaborating with them in the "Knowing me, you, us" Comenius Project.

A Power Point presentation had already been created by some students from 4^A Erica to present our Po Delta Park as their contributon to another Comenius Project.

Here are the links to the photo galleries and the PPT Presentation they created.

http://lnx.itcrovigo.it/siti_nostri/Album_Rovigo_Comenius_2010/index.htm

http://lnx.itcrovigo.it/siti_nostri/Album_provincia_Comenius_2010/index.htm

http://lnx.itcrovigo.it/images/stories/attivita_in_europa/comenius/2009_2010/THE%20PO%20DELTA%20REGIONAL%20PARK.ppt

And now, we want to wish you ... wonderful summer holidays!!!



Relax, have fun and .... keep in touch!


Hugs.



Paola

END-OF-THE-SCHOOL-YEAR SHOW

On June 4 our school organised an end-of-the-shool-year show to present first-year and second-year students some of the many activities and projects carried out by various groups of students in our institute.

During the show some students sang songs in English, German and Spanish and between songs other groups of students delivered the Power Point presentations of their Comenius experiences in Portugal, France and .... Poland!

As a matter of fact, our school is involved in two Comenius Projects: EurOpenMinded and Knowing me, you, us.

But other activties were also presented during the show, other projects aiming at developing active citzenship, such as Europa Ludens and the Student European Parliament.

THE ENVIRONMENT

This is a short article in French which describes a school experience of two first classes - 1^C and 1^D - of our Institute whose students carried out a school project about the environment.


The activities were carried out in French.


A Venise pour parler d'écologie



Le 24 et 26 février 2010, nous, les élèves des classes 1^C and 1^D de ITC De Amicis, accompagnés de nos professoeurs de français et de sciences naturelles, nous sommes allés voir l'exposition de photos "Salva/guardala!", une exposition organisée par l'Alliance Françaises de Venise dans la fondation "Querini Stampalia".


Le but était celui d'aider les étudiants à comprendre l'importance de la défense de l'environnement afin de prévenir tous les effets destructifs que l'homme cause à son égard.

Nous avons vu beaucoup de belles photos et nous avons compris que notre planète est en danger parce qu'il y a beaucoup de pollution.

Si quelqu'un veut lire notre article, cliquez ici:

http://lnx.itcrovigo.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=395&Itemid=54

PROJECT MEETING IN AGEN

From 15 to 19 March 2010, the second project meeting of the "Knowing me, you, us" Comenius Project was held in Agen, France. The participants from our institute were four students from class 2^A ERICA - Anna Paparella, Fabiola Sandri, Lara Destro e Jessica Mazzaro - and two teachers, Sara Nalli e Michele Bregolin.

The "E. De Amicis" Institute in Rovigo is the coordinator of the project which has as its main objective to promote awereness of cultural diversity among young people in various regions of Europe and to encourage them to explore employment opportunities in their areas helping them to discover the tools the European Union offers them to enter the world of work.

The Italian students and teachers were welcomed at the Licée Professionnel Régional Antoine Lomet, pertner institution of the Comenius project which organized the project meeting for all the European partners: Portugal, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania.

The five days' meeting was intense and gave the students and teachers the chance to communicate in English, which was the vehicular language of all partners of the Comenius: through this experience the participants have understood the importance of foreign language learning which promotes dialogue and understanding and opens the doors to the world of work buiding bridges of friendship between peoples.

FAIR TRADE

The students of 3^C Mercurio in our Institute carried out a series of activities on Fair Trade within the sub-projects which are part of another Comenius project, called EurOpenMinded, in which our school is participating as a partner school.

This is their report.

Fair trade is a movement that wants to combat the exploitation of small disadvantaged producers in underdeveloped countries of the world by transnational companies.
Fairtraders think that everything started from globalization and from the need of western companies to use cheap labour in less wealthy parts of the world to undercut high costs of production.
The Fair Trade Movement was born in the 1950s when religious and social welfare groups began importing articles in specialised shops. At the beginning these products were mostly handycrafts but, nowadays, they are foodstuffs such as coffee, chocolate, dry fruit and many kinds of clothing and furniture that can also and easily be found in supermarkets and big stores.


The symbol on the left (with a yellow curve and a blue one, almost forming a circle), is the FLO (Fair Trade Label) symbol and belongs to a corporation that helps distributing fair trade products all over the world.




The other logo on the right belongs to FTO (Fair Trade Organization). Together they oversee the certification of products. In order to be certified a product must undergo a rigorous auditing process and the goods and services sold must create opportunities for marginalized groups, transparent management and full accountability of the production procedure should be demonstrated at any time and, above all,
their sale should pay the producer a fair price.

In 2000 a Fair Trade Town Movement was founded when Garstang, a small town in the North West of England, committed itself to promote sales of Fair Trade products and to ensure more farmers in developing countries a fair deal.
The local government of the town where we live – Rovigo – shares the same goals at the basis of this movement. It is working in order to take practical action around sustainable development.
We have recently talked in our school (High School for Accountants) about this topic and thought over it with the help of an expert. Some of us have found out it is time to engage oneself in some concrete action.
Everybody should do something for the developing countries. And something can be done not only by buying fair trade products but also by getting well informed about business transactions between the North and the South of the world.
Here is a quotation from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) that should always be kept in mind: "Getting money is not all a man's business; to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of business life".

The students of 3^C Mercurio
ITC De Amicis

MAKING NEW FRIENDS!

A group of Romanian students from the “Economic High School of Tourism” of Iasi arrived in Rovigo on Sunday night after a long journey.
On Monday morning Ana, Florin, Vlad and Dan came to the “Edmondo de Amicis” Institute and met the Italian students and teachers. They presented their schools and cities. After that all the students went together to visit the town and later on to eat the famous Italian pizza.
On Tuesday morning they participated in the school assembly organized by the Italian students and watched a music show where the Italian students sangs some songs in Italian and English. In the afternoon the group of Romanian and Italian students visited the beautiful city of Ferrara.
On Wednesday they had a challenge in which they presented two festivities: the Italian Befana and the Romanian festivity of Boboteaza, both of them celebrated on January 6.
On Thursday the guests and their Italian friends visited the famous city of Venice, and on Friday they stayed for the last time in Rovigo.
On Saturday early in the morning the Romanian group left Italy and went back to the freezing Romania.
They enjoyed their stay in Italy very much!

SCHOOL PRESENTATION

Hello guys!

We are a group of students from ITC "Edmondo De Amicis" and

we are attending the second year in the course of study called "E.R.I.C.A.".

Our High School is named after the Italian writer Edmondo De Amicis,

whose best-known book is the children's novel “Heart”.

In the school there are four different courses of study:

• E.R.I.C.A.: by attending this course of study the students will become flexible in foreign languages. The students will acquire a sound logical, mathematical, computer science background and can enrol at any university faculty;
  



• I.G.E.A.: this course will allow students to operate in various sectors such as industry and commerce, transportation, and the mass media;
  
  
  
• I.G.E.A. sports project: the students of this course of study will acquire legal, economic, linguistic skills and competences together with sports skills;
  
  
  
• MERCURIO: the students of this course of study will be able to fit in a business with considerable mastery by using information technology as a tool for entering successfully the world of work, either the private or the public sector. .
  

HERE ARE SOME PROJECTS DEVELOPED IN OUR SCHOOL

• EUROPA LUDENS: Europa Ludens, as the title implies, means "learning about Europe by playing a didactic game": after following meetings or conferences on current topics related to the European Union, the participating students are divided into groups and simulate the work of the European Committees proposing solutions for the various issues they analyse in a document - a resolution that is set along the lines of the documents prepared by the European Parliament committees. According to the rules of the game, students from various schools of Padua, Rovigo and Vicenza, take part in different project activities to have the chance to participate in a journey to Strasbourg: here "Europa Ludens" students will be received at the headquarters of the European Parliament during one of its work sessions and can visit the Council of Europe.

STUDENTS’ EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: The Students’ European Parliament or PES is a project that involves students from high schools in different provinces of the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions. PES aims to spread the training of European citizenship, making young people take an active role in society, by having them discuss about human rights,legality and peace among students and young people. In our school a group of students have organized a laboratory where they are carrying out research on local institutions - the municipality and the province.

CERTIFICATIONS: Different types of certifications can be achieved in our school:

> foreign language certifications for English, French, German and Spanish;

> computer competence certification or ECDL;

> business competence certification or EBCL.