Final report comments

Mobility in Finland

As the Finnish students were already familiar with the method of video production and with the locations we visited, they had to look at them from an outside perspective. For instance, the experiment we chose as our hands-on lab work seemed mundane for the Finnish host students, but as most of their guests had never used chemistry lab equipment before, they had to instruct their group members in an understandable way. Whenever there was a location whose history the guests asked elaboration on, the Finnish host students were able to use their existing knowledge of the location to create presentations on the go. In the end, each student got a video documentary that they themselves were a key piece in producing, to give them a sense of belonging and agency. The Finnish students got to see some of the most mundane aspects of their everyday lives from a fresh, exotic point of view. As this mobility was the first of our mobilities to get realized, the students from abroad also had to confront their expectations when they stepped in the shoes of their host students in host families. To document this, in addition to verbalizing their findings in video documentary form, we also compiled the students’ anonymous views on the final day into a Padlet that everyone could access on four fronts: what the students expected before arrival, what they had learned, what they found was the most exotic, and what they found was the best. According to our summary, the students wished to experience Finnish spring weather with low temperatures and snow. In addition to picking up some Finnish words and idioms, they verbalized cultural differences but also named specific things they learned more about: bioplastics, chocolate production, pollinators, and environmental pollution. In both the videos and the Padlet responses, the students also brought up how different the Finnish waterscapes are from their respective countries’ ecosystems, findings to present to their respective teams at home.

Mobility in Germany

All the participant picked up German phrases or invigorated their lost German skills. We also observed in practice that it is possible to communicate even without a common language in the foreign environment. The cultural differences were made visible by the length of our stay: the teachers are referred to with their surnames, and they address others in a more formal way than the Finns do, for example. Furthermore, the Finnish students commented that the other participants are less reversed than they themselves are. The activities and the season in Germany awakened us to be aware of our water consumption, as a continuation to the virtual mobility a year before. This message was spread to the other communities by, for instance, videos and pictures filmed during the activities. Especially the water treatment plant visit invoked vivid sensations in the participants. Furthermore, the importance of the Rhine river as a site to absorb the purified waste water of the region, but also to provide the inhabitants with fresh drinking water. We also learned that pollution has been a problem, and that the purification methods had been improved upon greatly in the recent decades. The effect of this message was deepened by the fact that the students got to build their own water purifiers from household materials, which linked most of the activities together and which fostered the students’ innovations and creativity brought about by the week. As this was the final mobility with most of the original students from pre-Covid times, the age differences between the groups of students was not an issue, as they had had time to form bonds between one another during the Covid years and our virtual mobilities. The students are still planning to visit each other in smaller groups as of December 2022, which proves that our mobility has influenced the students socially and emotionally as well.

Mobility in France

The main cultural lesson was that even lacking a knowledge of a language and lacking a language in common, it is possible to get a message across and even have a lucrative discussion. The students commented that the communication culture in the mobility across nationalities was highly successful. The participants picked up French phrases, invigorated lost language skills, and even honed their skills in French as a second mother tongue. The students’ most vivid memories of the mobility is that the food is plentiful but at irregular, spaced intervals. In addition, the fairly high temperatures even in September emphasized the need for water and salts when out and about. The school rhythm in the French partner school seemed more confined and longer than in the Finnish, German, and Italian partner schools: phones were not allowed to be visible at any time in the premises, and the school days last till 5 pm with a long break at noon. This provided the students an ample opportunity to spend time face-to-face during the school day instead of browsing through content on their phones. Some students even commented that it would be beneficial for the other partner schools to adopt this rule to improve concentration in class. The variety of the activities during this mobility made it clear and visible how water ecosystems are affected by climate change and how these changes in turn drive climate change: for example, the lack of ice at the Sea of Ice in the Alps made most students audibly gasp when they had wrapped their heads around the speed at which the Mer is melting. This was in direct contrast to the beauty we had observed in, for example, the stalactite cave which was mostly unaffected by and shielded against climate change.

Mobility in Italy

The benefits were twofold: On one hand, the students got hands-on experience in what comes to water, ecosystems, and genuine, human-borne threats on them. On the other hand, students learned how different culturally and societally life in the Mediterranean region is from those in the other partner schools. We learned that potable tap water, a functioning garbage system, access to pure recreational nature areas, and small acts of everyday life that are meant as exercise are not to be taken as given. Most buildings, which were old in the partner town, are not well-equipped to face the changes by climate change, as there were water leaks in buildings are cars alike. If climate keeps changing at the same rate, the teachers and students alike wondered spontaneously if migrant birds will still feel the need to migrate, if buildings have to be rebuilt from scratch, and if constant accumulation of plastic waste on highways and town streets alike will have severe repercussions. As a part of every-day life, Italian people seem to interact more on a physical level and to emote with their hands. Furthermore, students and teachers from each partner school commented on the steep language barrier between most locals and the visitors. Some students were able to use software to translate discussions sentence by sentence on the go, but this relied on the students’ access to internet abroad. In contrast, the students commented how the sense of community within the participants of this mobility, both local and foreign, was tight from the get-go, even more so than in any of the previous mobilities. In addition, the Italian host students had to pay for the activities from their own pockets, even though the other partner schools used their budgets to fund the mobility costs.