23 Latvian and 20 Danish students have worked together on climate issues including two exchanges, one in Denmark in 2009, and one in Latvia in 2010. The project was financed by the Nordplus Junior Programme. Both schools have years of cooperation with BSP-programmes, e.g. reporting to Coastwatch.

It was cold and still sub-zero when, in March 2010, 20 students in the 9th grade at Hoerup Centralskole from the island Als in southern Denmark left for a week of adventure in Salacgriva. Before this happened, there had been a week of exchange in September 2009, when the 23 Latvian 10th grade students from Salacgriva Vidusskola in northern Latvia came to Denmark. For a week the whole group worked with climate issues, producing short films about saving energy.
Accommodation is not paid for by the Nordplus Programme, and this is good! It makes private accommodation necessary.
Besides knowing each other and knowing the homes in Denmark and Latvia, the students experience new ways of working with school projects. Danish students are very familiar with working in project groups, and the Latvian students picked it up fast. Using this method the students have a wide degree of self-organisation, as long as the goal is met. Often it means that the students do a lot of investigation and work at home, as they choose an aspect of the issue which has caught their interest.

Focus on climate
This time the task was to find solutions to climate issues. What has already been done locally in Latvia, and what future solutions are in the wings? What special things in this area could be lost if (when!) climate change causes the sea level to rise? Every group had different topics and the results were presented and discussed at the end of the week.

The future is now
Beside the group work the students had excursions to environment friendly factories, power plants, and a fish factory. Canned fish is considered food without any additives, fish is sensitive to pollution, and the river Salacgriva is one of the cleanest rivers in the Baltic. This is the reason why the area is designated a UNESCO-biosphere reserve.
We also visited a new recycling plant which sorts all kinds of plastic waste for reuse - partly supported by the EU and run cooperatively by several local municipalities.
All examples which point to the future. One group came up with the idea to paint houses with electricity producing paint. Who knows what might be possible in the future?

Cooperation across borders
All the students had lots of unexpected experiences, and some of them made friends for life -as did some of the teachers!
Class exchange projects are very important school activities, and the tendency to ask that the activities be well described and focused on issues such as climate changes or other school topics in general, is warmly welcomed.
Nordplus Junior is a popular financer of class exchanges, and one can expect refusal of applications more than once, but when you succeed, it is all worth it!

Read more: www.hoerup-skole.dk