Hochschule für Agrar- und Umweltpädagogik Wien

Erasmus+ Blended Intensive Programme (BIP) Summer School "Encountering international insights into current food systems"

This BIP offers students in teacher's training programs international insights into food production with a focus on sustainability.

Objectives

The blended intensive program BIP (KA131) "SNAG: sustainability - nutrition - agriculture" invites international students to take a closer and structured look on the region they live in and on its food system(s). The goal is to become familiar with the respective local food system, to analyse it and become an agent for transformation towards a local sustainable concept of nutrition. The international student exchange didactically aims at developing an awareness about being part of a particular environment with possibilities for change and action.

Background

The University College of Agricultural and Environmental Education (HAUP) in Vienna designed this summer school together with two other European universities. This summer school has been carried out annually at one of these universities. The first summer school took place in June 2022 at HAUP in Vienna. The other partners are the University of Applied Sciences Aeres in the Netherlands and the St. Angela's College Sligo in Ireland. The students are studying to become teachers at their home institutions and come from different fields of professions like agriculture, nutrition, food technology, household sciences with a strong connection to pedagogy or didactics.

(Implemented) Activities

The core part of this BIP is the summer week, which is a physical, face-to-face interaction time of five days. During this time students are forming international groups and working on multidisciplinary lesson planning. Furthermore, field trips to schools are taking place where students can try out their developed lesson plans. The week ends with a reflection day in order to sum up the students' impressions of the week. Two online phases with interactions between teachers and international students complete the framework of this educational program. In the preparation phase of the SNAG 1 in 2022 students were given the opportunity to conduct individual research about their local food systems and then discuss it in international groups. Eventually, in the follow-up phase students were capturing their individual learning process in a learning diary and then created a professional article in an online magazine.

Results

International Summer Schools provide those students who, for whatever reason, cannot complete a full semester abroad with an opportunity to gain international experience that can be taken advantage of at a manageable effort. Participation in this summer school will be credited to students for their academic performance in their respective home country. In addition, through the organization of this BIP, there was a lively exchange among the teachers of the three institutions, which also achieved a lasting effect in international cooperation.

Lessons learned

From our point of view, continuity seems to be important. The BIP took a lot of effort in conception, thus, it makes sense that it will also take place in the two following years at the partner institutions on similar topics.

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