1 Using the European heart materials in school

1.1        Description of the pilots

Austria: The Practical Secondary School of PH Steiermark

The Practical secondary school of PH Steiermark is a school on secondary level 1, i.e., a compulsory school for the age group of 10 to 14 years in Graz. This school is characterised by many years of experience with inclusion of pupils with different abilities and different first languages in all grades. In addition, this school is also part of the Austrian UNESCO school network. As such, the school is committed to human rights and peace and implements numerous projects every year, also in public spaces, especially with creative methods.

The fourth form / 8th grade is the grade in Austria where school performances and tests show whether the pupils have reached the level to be able to transfer to a higher secondary school with an A-level as a qualification. Therefore, it had to be tried that the pupils could work well on the project and still not miss too much of their learning time. Therefore, the pupils were first prepared for the contents of this project week in the regular lessons of German, Religion and History.

Two fourth classes of the Practical secondary school then experienced a project week on the contents of the EU Heart project in autumn 2021. A multi-professional team composed of teachers from the subject areas of German, Ethics and History planned the activities for the two classes with pupils and prepared the materials in a methodologically-didactically coordinated manner. During the project week, the timetables of the classes were cancelled. The first phase of this project aimed to familiarise the pupils with the concept of Basic Needs and Strategies. Here they worked mainly in small groups with many discussions based on the contents of the booklets on IO1. By the end of this phase, the young people had a good understanding of the ideas of basic needs, which are common to all people.

In the second part of the project week at the beginning of November, work was done on these ideas using the historical episode of women's suffrage in Austria. By working with the historical episode and the different perspectives of the actors, the struggle for women's suffrage became comprehensible and tangible for the young people.

Figure 3 Rembart, R. (2021). Activities during the project week at PMS. [Photograph]. Graz. Pädagogische Hochschule Steiermark

A handbook for the project days entitled "Milestones in Human History - Women's Suffrage" introduced the participants to this important episode in human history that set the course for great, positive changes in history. In a creative and playful way, the pupils dealt with the time around 1910, they discussed quotations and designed their own slogans to advertise for women's suffrage, in several role plays and many exercises in small teams, the young people then created the texts for the video.

Figure 4: Wagner, A. (2022). Puppets created by the pupils at PMS. [Photograph]. Graz. Pädagogische Hochschule Steiermark

Continuous work on the topic after the project week also took place in the subjects of History, Ethics and Social learning, as well as in the focus classes of the creative activities in handicrafts, which were responsible for building the puppets.

The puppets for the videos were created in numerous sessions during the handicraft lessons. Each team produced a puppet within the class. With a lot of patience and skills, but above all always with great joy, they worked on the face shapes, the matching facial expressions, the hair and the clothing. Only the most successful products were finally selected for the video. In preparation for the filming, the text, the movements in the puppet show and the English version were rehearsed in the focus subject Media and Communication.

This resulted in the text for the short movies in German and English, which were successfully filmed at the end of February.

The pupils not only enjoyed working on these topics a lot but were also sensitized to basic human needs and women's rights by this work.

Figure 5: Calaviore, V. (2021). During the puppet workshop (creation and play) at PMS. [Photograph]. Graz. Pädagogische Hochschule Steiermark