"The purpose of STEM project is to develop an innovative approach in science lessons. By doing this, our primary aim is to stimulate students' creativity, help them gain critical thinking, questioning ability towards natural events and make them aware of their environment and energy sources. In other words our initial aim is to educate the future generations as questioning, criticising, creating individuals in physics lessons and expect them to be aware of renewable energy via STEM. It is our project priority to create innovative learning environments where to exploit the same technological tools our students are so fond of once caught their attention, it will become easier to help them develop transversal skills such as critical thinking, ICT. International cooperation will focus on the creation of a blended learning environment based on student-centered methodologies: through face to face activities. At least 2 English teachers, 2 science teachers, 2 teachers within each school field of study; selection will be based on personal curricula and an interview, and selection parameters will be: ICT/language competences, personal motivation, involvement in school projects and previous LLP activities. 50 students from each school according to the following parameters to be detected through a written test and an interview: ICT/language competences, STEM skills, renewable energy awareness, creative skills, special education needs, personal motivation and willingness to be involved in school projects. This project will provide an innovative approach ""STEM"" which will stimulate pupils' creativity and questioning ability. In particular, the technology will be the main learning space where students will be stimulated to develop creative skills and learn the sustainable energy sources and be aware of resources within the following fields of study: Turkey (geothermal energy), Hungary (biomass energy), Portugal (hydro energy), Slovenia (photovoltaic), Denmark (wind), and Italy (solar). In other words , our STEM project will help students gain awareness about sustainable energy and sensitiveness towards green environment through searching, observing and experimenting the production of renewable energy like solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, biomass . Teachers and students from project schools and schools in the neighbourhood, sister schools, parents, local communities will be involved in the project both directly and indirecty. During the mobilities in each host county a culture fest will be organized in the hall or corridors of the host partner school for the involvement of all the students and the school staff. The host school will hold an exhibition which will be open all the schools in neighbourhood, the staff of sister schools, parents and local communities as well. The outcomes of our project will be exhibited and shared online and accessible to the public. By means of these dissemination activities lots of students will be actively inside the project. In certain aspects of the project eg. by voting the most productive power plant, the best picture, advertising, short film, logo etc..other stakeholders will take part in this project through e-Twinning, facebook, project website and youtube channel. We will share the outcomes of our works on e-Twinning project where we will carry out collaboratively as well. The involved students will be furnished the right skills and knowledge to become future generations aware of one’s own capabilities, able of critical thinking, problem solving and making significant committments to create something new. With the help of our STEM project we will not only inspire the future generations by using STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) approach but we also aim to educate them from their stem to branch so as to make them more facultative towards environment and alternative resources. All the 2 years project experiences, both the virtual and the real ones, will be displayed in Erasmus Wall as well as on the STEM Project website and e-Twinning portal. All ""STEM"" project outcomes will be spread through a detailed dissemination plan and supervised by the partner school leaders, through an agenda of events monitoring to what extent project activities will be implemeted compared with what initially planned. After two years practicing and discovering new energy sources via STEM, Science Teaching will Energize Modernisation, students will be more equiped with technology, more open to innovations, will believe in themselves and get the stimulation to create more and more. With the help of our STEM project we will not only inspire the future generations by using STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) approach but we also aim to educate them from their stem to branch so as to make them more facultative towards environmant and alternative resources."

It is the declared goal for Mercantec to give as many students as possible an international experience in the course of their edcation. Mercantec is working continuesly to improve the mobilities in order to give the students the best possible experiences and a strenghting of their education. Mercantec has kept the partners from the application submitted in 2018 but also bringing in new partners to broaden the selection of educations and to include as many departments as possible. Among these newpartner there is a spanish partner M.E.P. Europrojects Granada for our IT students and IES Cotes Baixes for our EUX students and this partner will also send students to Mercantec. Mercantec sends students from every department of the school. Higher Business Gymnasium sends a class to Ireland for work placements and language courses. From the hotel and restaurant school, mercantec sends students to Malloca, Hungary, Hennef and rakvere. The students come from GF2 and the practice center. TVC sends students from the practice center for IT supporter and Data technician to Granada and Neumünster. TVC has a cooperation with Grundfos, LEGO and B&O where students from these companies are sent to ABB and Neumünster. Auto Technical Center sends students from the practice center to Neumünster, Troisdorf, mallorca, Westport and Rakvere. Metal sends students form the practice center to Neumünster, Mallorca and Ireland. Higher Technical Gymnasium will have visitors from Galway Ireland and also visit the irish school, with the intent build a mobility relationship for Game design. The construction school sends carpeters, painters and concrete workers to Hennef, Mallorca, Iceland and Rakvere. These students come from the practice center, GF2 and main courses. The Business School sends students from the practice center and EUX to Mallorca and Ireland.Erasmus+ mobilities is the corner stone for Mercantec's international work. The program enables us to give the large number of students an international scope on their education. Our experience is that our students come home with many positive experiences from their mobilities and they are willing to participate in new mobilities. It is the aim of Mercantec to have an overall students satisfaction procent of 70. In the report for our previous project we had score which was about 6 procent under the expected 70%. We have there set up initiatives for improvement both at the international office and in our department. The conclusion is that the international department has to play a greater role in both preparation and evaluation with the students.Our experience is that more and more students are asking about the danish PIU (Pratice abroad) programme. We expect that there will be an introduction fase in regards to new partners and we are palnning to visit the new partners before sending students. Mercantec has a goal to develop Erasmus+ mobilities which are longer than 3 weeks, and a new partner in Portugal has this oppotunity. This partner has a cooperation with two companies, which would be able to host business students for 7 weeks. We know that we might have a challenge with finding the students but nevertheless we know that the students would like these longer lasting placements.We plan to visit our German partners in June 2020. This visit is to improve our relationship and explore possible future areas of cooperation. The participants on this trip is the heads of educations from the individual departments as well as the head of the international department and the international coordinator. Another goal for the trip is to explore the possiblity of finding PIU placements for Danish students in Germany. The focus is on VET and EUX students.Mercantec is a member of the Xarxa FP which is a cooperation between cities in Europa and their VET schools. We are working on a cooperation with Alcoi in Spain for both KA1 an KA2. The cooperation with Alcoi has resulted in two PIU placements, in which Danish students are doing work experience in Spanish companies. Mercantec is already welcoming students from Xarxa partners and therefore there is a big future potential in developing Mercantec's Erasmus+ mobilities. We have since the last project application developed a school-based exchange with an eletronics school in Münich. The exchange has been carried out one time as both sending and hosting. We are always sending an accompanying teacher along on mobilities due to the fact that most of our students are coming from the practice centers and these students are not the most ressourcefull students. A lot of them has never travelled for longer periods before. It therefore nessesary to send a teacher along to secure the success for the students in order to make future international experiences possible. This is in line with our international strategy to send 20 students per year on PIU work placements.

It is the declared goal for Mercantec to give as many students as possible an international experience in the course of their edcation. Mercantec is working continuesly to improve the mobilities in order to give the students the best possible experiences and a strenghting of their education. Mercantec has kept the partners from the application submitted in 2017 but also bringing in new partners to broaden the selection of educations and to include as many departments as possible. Among these new partner there is a spanish partner M.E.P. Europrojects Granada for our IT students and IES Cotes Baixes for our EUX students and this partner will also send students to Mercantec. Mercantec sends students from every department of the school. Higher Business Gymnasium sends a class to Malaga for work placements and language courses. From the hotel and restaunt school, mercantec sends students to Malloca, Hungary, Hennef, rakvere and Cypres. The students come from GF2 and the practice center. House of Technology sends students from the practice center for IT supporter and Data technician to Granada and Neumünster. HOT has a cooperation with Grundfos, LEGO and B&O where students from these companies are sent to ABB and Neumünster. Auto Technical Center sends students from the practice center to Neumünster, Troisdorf, mallorca, Westport and Rakvere. Metalcraft sends students form the practice center to Neumünster, Mallorca and Ireland. Higher Technical Gymnasium will have visitors from Galway Ireland and also visit the irish school, with the intent build a mobility relationship for Game design. The construction school sends carpeters, painters and concrete workers to Hennef, Mallorca, Iceland and Pärnuu. These students come from the practice center, GF2 and main courses. The Business School sends students from the practice center and EUX to London, Mallorca, Ireland and we are working on a futur cooperation with two school from Ireland (Galway and Kerry), as well as sending students from the practice center to Portugal. Erasmus+ mobilities is the corner stone for Mercnatec's international work. The program enable us to give the most number of students an international scope on their education. Our experience is that our students come home with many positive experiences from their mobilities and they are willing to participate in new mobilities. Our experience is that more and more students are asking about the danish PIU (Pratice abroad) programme. We expect that there will be an introduction fase and we are palnning to visit the new partners before sending students. Mercantec has a goal to develop Erasmus+ mobilities which are longer than 3 weeks, and a new partner in Portugal has this oppotunity. This partner has a cooperation with two companies, which would be able to host business students for 7 weeks. We know that we might have a challenge with finding the students but nevertheless we know that the students would like these longer lasting placements. We plan to visit our German partners in June 2018. This visit is to improve our relationship and explore possible future areas of cooperation. The participants on this trip is the heads of educations from the individual departments as well as the head of the international department and the international coordinator. Another goal for the trip is to explore the possiblity of finding PIU placemnts for Danish students in Germany. The focus is on VET and EUX students. A visit to the Xarxa partner Munich is also palnned for 2018. Mercnatec is a member of the Xarxa FP which is a cooperation between cities in Europa and their VET schools. We are working on a cooperation with Alcoi in Spain for both KA1 an KA2. The cooperation with Alcoi has resulted in two PIU placements, in which Danish students are doing work experience in Spanish companies. Mercantec is already welcoming students from Xarxa partners and therefore there is a big future potential in developing Mercantec's Erasmus+ mobilities. We are sending a teacher along on mobilities due to the fact that most of our students are coming from the practice centers and these students are not the most ressourcefull students. A lot of them has never travelled for longer periods before. It therefore nessesary to send a teacher along to secure the success for the student in order to make future international experiences possible. This is in line woith our international strategy to send 30 students per year on PIU work placements. Mercantec applies for 6 mobilities in ErasmusPRO. We plan to offer these mobilities to students who finish their education and thereby give them the oppotunity to add an international dimension to their education. Mercantec is furthermore working with Grundfos to offer their apprentices the same possiblities.

This organisation has been awarded an Erasmus accreditation. The award of the accreditation confirms that the organisation has set up a plan to implement high quality mobility activities as part of a wider effort to internationalize its activities and to improve the quality of learning and teaching at the organisation. Accredited organisations are committed to a set of quality standards defined at the European level. By being accredited, the organisation gains continuous and easier access to funding for mobility activities of learners and staff under Key Action 1.

<< Background >>The idea for the project came from an evaluation meeting with teachers from Mercatec Technology department. The managers and teacher requested at follow up on experiences with distance Learning. The discussion took place on the finding of the EVA report on COVID-19 lockdown (EVA - Danish Evaluation Instutute). There were both good and not so good experiences and there was a wish to capitalize on all the experiences. The international department was present at the meeting and introduced the idea of sharing these experiences across boarders in Europe since all countries had been effected by lockdown and had to have inputs and similar/other experiences.The international department searched for partners within the Xarxa network and other assosiated partners. The partnership had to be from across Europe and with different teaching traditions in order to secure a variaty of views on online distance learning.The COVID-19 has provided the VET sector a unique oppotunity to rethink the way we conduct classes. The VET school are at times pressure for space and distance learning could be a means of dealing with this obstacle. It should however not be at the expence of the student learning. This is where this project will try to deliver solutions to go forward with blended learning by the help of the input and experiences of teachers and students.Another issue we want to adress is that the VET scholls have experienced an increased number of students who have droped out of school during The COVID-19 lockdown. We think that the lack of social inclusion and the difficulties with distance learning has been contributing factor to the increase.<< Objectives >>The main objective of the project is to collect the experiences from digital distance learning and thereby build capacity for digital readiness among teachers and students in the VET sector in Europe. Furthermore the project wants to address key issues which all VET schools has to consider when moving forward with digital distance learning. These issues could lead the way for more innovative practices and a digital transformation for the VET sector.The project partners wish to learn from other teaching cultures as well as inspire other to go forward in transforming the VET sector.<< Implementation >>This project consists of 5 partners from 5 European countries who will examine questions and develop an outline for a didactic for digital readiness. The project consist of:5 work packages:- WP1 - Good Practices Pooling.- WP2 - Social Inclusion for students online.- WP3 - Inclusion (Mapping student experiences)- WP3.1 Inclusion (Didactics and Paedagogy)- WP4 Creating Digital Learning Space 5 transnational meetings in each partner country (Italy, Spain, Estonia and Denmark). The meetings will be used for monitoring the progress and quality of the project aswell as planning future aktivities in order to keep the deliverance of the project on track.5 Learning-Teaching-Training Events connected to each of the work packages. This project focuses on exchange of good practices and capasity building of teachers to strengthen the compenteces of the instutions involved in the project. Furthermore to share findings with the VET sector.<< Results >>The outcomes of the project will be:- a booklet of the good digital practices during the COVID-19 lockdown.- Digital code of conduct for students- Recommandations for future distance learning lesson..- recommendations for teachers on digital didactics and paedagogy aproaches - do's and don'ts.- describe recommendations on how to establish digital learning environments.The outcomes will be published as text and/or podcasts to be circulated to the VET sector.