"Leaving Footprints - Creating Ecological and Social Environment in EuropeProject's context/background:The wish for enhanced quality of life is anchored in every European and the ecological and social space offers possibilities to realize this mutual wish and to simultaneously strengthen the European community spirit. Therefore, the potential of the interaction between individual and environment becomes obvious: bracing oneself means bracing environment (and vice versa).Project's aims:International networking opens a chance to personal development. Therefore, it is the project's aim to support young Europeans in creating their personal environment sustainably through international exchange. This can be realized by cherishing, caring for and conserving the environment. The adolescents should encounter ways to cherish, care for and conserve environment - independently of their location. In the long run, this should enable the students to shape their environment (in both meanings of the word, social as well as ecological environment) to increase their quality of life.Number and profile of participants: Students as well as their teachers take part in the activities. The students are of the age between 16 and 19 years. Interested students of the different school communities can participate too, a group of participants will combine the results internationally.The teachers initiate the various processes and canalize the students' ideas as well as they support the students in creating own ideas.Different experts may serve the participating schools to provide information on the three activities' focuses (cherishing, caring for and conserving the environment), the choice of additional experts is on the individual school/host. Teenagers from Germany, Portugal and Romania take part in the project, so that they can gain different impressions of various European regions.Description of the activities and methodology of the project's conduction:The focus ""cherishing environment"" contributes to the students' perception of different regions and different ecosystems which may not be their own usual location. So they create awareness for the responsibility - also as European - for regions which are not their social and ecological environment.Concerning the focus ""caring for environment"" the project enables students to work on alternatives to reduce humans' negative impact on the environment. Perception can differ culturally, the students will experience different examples of human influence on environment and therefore school their intercultural competence.The third topic “conserving environment” offers the potential to create environment – based on the individual experience and creation of consciousness during the earlier phases in the working process. This leads to the experience of self-efficacy in a European context.The international activities focus on working on the topics of biodiversity (flora), biodiversity (fauna) and water.The results are combined ideas for the participants’ further individual and ecological development. This is supposed to sharpen the participants’ perception of a mutual responsibility for the environment and allows further international connection. Additional factors that are worked on are digital competences, social competence, creativity, spreading the ""Erasmus+""-idea, making good experiences, presenting youth's influence, connecting on an international level.Description of the results and impact envisaged and the potential longer term benefits:The project's results are a collection of videos and their publication on social media. They include the activities on the focusses cherishing, caring for and conserving environment. The results are realized in different media (e.g. video journal, tour guide, tutorials...) that portray the participants' experiences and offer further use. The collection of media is going to be added by material created after the official end of the project, further development will be possible. Using social media enables the students to further connecting internationally.The participants focus on the interaction of individual and environment during the project. The international connection allows personal development, also by allowing the students to locate themselves in a region, that is not their usual location. Therefore, international students create awareness for the responsibility - also as a European in line with the current legal regulations set by the EU - concerning regions that are not their social or ecological environment."