Cyprus, LYKEIO AGIOY ANTONIOY, LEMESOS

Saint Antony's High School will take the leading role of the project. More specifically we will organize the eeting and the programme during the Youth Exchange Meeting  in Cyprus. This will include finding accommodation for the trainers of the meeting and take care of all logistic matters of the meeting. Additionally, we will set up the facebook page and the website, and will complete the final report of the project. All other partner countries will do their own reports, which will be included in the final report for the project. We will undertake the financial management and budgeting of the project, and do all arrangements related to the preparatory meeting of the trainers that took place in Cyprus from 25 to 27 of April 2014, information about the APV you will find here: ccafaf.webnode.com/actions-/apv-meeting-/

Contact person: Nikolas Nikolaou, email: nic_nicolaou@hotmail.com

The Lykeio Agioy Antoniou was first opened in 1976 as a Public School. Now it has more than 50 teachers and more than 300 students. Among the aims of the Lyceum is to make its pupils active European citizens through research projects for environment and energy.
Our school is located in a relatively poor neighborhood, therefore we have poor students and. We also have students from other regions due to the fact that we live in a city that hosts people from other countries with different regions. Our school is integrated in an urban area with low social and cultural background; the majority of students and even their families have no expectations of their future; we have students in professional courses with low expectations of school; some of the students’ families are immigrants, a fact which causes problem for students to learn Greek. We also have students with special needs, who are integrated in regular classes. Most of the students, aged between 15 and 18 years, are from the nearby small rural villages and poor neighborhoods, where unemployment prevails. In consequence of this, their parents are obliged to work abroad, leaving their children with other members of the families.
Many students are involved in actions that our Lyceum organizes, actions which are related with a variety of themes. Every year creative teems are set up in our school: a theatre team, a team for traditional and modern dances, a team for music and also scientific teams making researches. The research in our school has to do with scientific themes such as Environment, Energy, Renewable Energy Sources, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry and Languages. In the projects that we are doing this year in our school they are involved more than 70 students. In these projects our first goals is to make the students to learn how to learn. ,With their involvement in these projects they have the opportunity to announce their results in other students and in public in general. Getting in contact with the educational system of another country, the teachers will increase their professional and personal experience, which will be a great benefit to our school. They will guide the students in their activities during the project; so they will improve both their ability to communicate in English and their ability to manipulate computers. The firm communication between them and their students will be beneficial, too.
Our School is one of the schools which have a leading role  in organizing every year a Conference (for all Cyprus Schools) for teachers and pupils about Natural Sciences.

The webpage of the school: lyk-ag-antonios-lem.schools.ac.cy/

Saint. Anthony High School every year organizes different groups which are making projects in relation with energy,  ecology, environment and other similar areas, but no research has yet made specifically for climate change. We do not have any scientific information’s or knowledge for this subject but in fact this is our purpose, to explore and research an area that we did not have before. What we do know however, is how to work as a team and how to organize and implement a project. The trainer of the Cypriot team is the one that guided all these school projects since 2008 and the participants are the ones who worked in some of these projects. Some examples of projects that we have done have titles like : "Construction of solar car", "Bioclimatic Design House", "Energy Saving Campaign", "Biodiesel construction at St. Anthony High School", "The phenomenon of Urban island". Here is a summary of the methodology we used in "Bioclimatic Design House". It can be helpful in order to understand the way we work  and organize.
Bioclimatic Design House survey was conducted during the school year 2011 - 2012. In all projects the first important task that has to be done is research around the subject. So we were informed about renewable energies and how they can be applied in a house. Later on, in one of the meetings we decided to take action and make changes to an existing house. We draw plans of an existing house (isometric view for better understanding) and then modify them to match with the changes that we proposed to make. Based on the new designs we built a model of the proposed house with the changes shown in the poster. Apart from researching and constructing, the group interviewed people that are engaged with the area and made questionnaires. The first one was given to other students in order to see the opinions of their classmates in relation to renewable energy in houses and generally their knowledge about this theme. A second survey was conducted in houses all around Limassol so students could see, through the processing of questionnaires, what conditions was prevailing in houses compared with bioclimatic design. Following the questionnaire, an economic analysis of the changes that they proposed took place and the estimation of the depreciation compared with the data of Cyprus. Finally we presented the results in conferences, competitions and in school. The results were presented by models, an electronic presentation and two posters, one of which is presented here in a thumbnail. The work was printed in a book, of about 150 pages.
Throughout the project we had the opportunity to meet with physics (energy, renewable), with chemistry (global warming, pollution and gaseous pollutants from conventional forms of energy), cultivate our skills in architectural design (design of the study and recommendations of the original architectural drawings), in financial accounting (financial analysis of the changes that were proposed and effort of depreciation), in technology (construction of layouts incorporating photovoltaic operating), gain general knowledge in the process of making a project (SPSS for analysis of questionnaires, Photoshop for making posters, Word for the presentation of text and work book, Power Point presentation for the electronic poster), and finally develop critical thinking (through profit and export of conclusions).
Doing all these in our school we had the experience about Local Project and we want to go through European Level so our students have the ability to be active European Citizens.