Part 1: The Tour Route
Plan a climate-neutral tour from your hometown to the trio capitals of the EU Council Presidency (Berlin, Lisbon, and Ljubljana).
- Whether by train, on horseback, by bike, or virtual – there are no limits to your ideas! All sustainable means of transport are allowed.
- Develop ideas about what sort of accommodations are suitable for an environmentally friendly journey and to what extent you can take local conditions into account.
- Make sure that your travel concept is detailed, feasible, and economical.
Part 2: Gain an Audience
Once you’ve planned your climate-neutral circular tour, the second quest consists of planning the communication measures you’ll use to reach as large an audience as possible and convince them of the advantages of your journey:
How do you get people excited about ‘sustainable travel’? What activities can you use to generate attention in Berlin, Lisbon, and Ljubljana? What channels will you use to document your travel experiences?
- Draw up digital and analog means you can use to share your journey with a broad, absolutely also local audience. Examples for this include a travel blog, a social media campaign, a film, and/or a high-profile event that you conduct at the travel locations. Please coordinate with your local Goethe-Instituts regarding your events in Berlin, Lisbon, and Ljubljana.
- Increase your radius by using the hashtag #oekoropa.
- The quality and scope of your interaction with the public on site and in social media channels will be assessed. The jury will also assess the teams’ persuasiveness on issues related to climate-neutral mobility and a European sense of belonging.
Kristina Cunningham
She works as a senior expert on multilingualism in the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission in Brussels. Her main focus is the implementation of the EU Council Recommendation on a comprehensive approach to language teaching and learning.
Education, multilingualism and youth work are areas that can be supported by EU programmes. In the school sector, the European Commission promotes "communities" for teachers through the School Education Gateway and eTwinning. Climate protection and environmental issues, as well as "Distance / Blended Learning" are currently very important topics in these areas.
What is your motivation to join #oekoropa?
It is a great pleasure for me to be a member of the jury for the #oekoropa competition. For several years now, young people all over Europe have been thinking about climate and environmental issues. The movement, which has gained a lot of strength thanks to Greta Thunberg, has taken on a whole new meaning since March 2020. Today, there is no longer a person in the economically strong regions of the world who does not think about how private and business trips can be planned and carried out more sustainably.
At the end of 2019, the European Commission had already taken the decision to make climate change and environmental challenges the eTwinning theme of the year 2020. This has led to an impressive number of interesting projects in school classes, which have enabled intensive cross-border cooperation for children and young people during the period of school closures. I am very curious to see what interesting ideas will be developed and elaborated through this Goethe-Institut initiative.
I wish all participants* a lot of fun and good luck!