We are thrilled to announce the official launch of the TREE Project — Teaching Resources for Ecological Education — a three-year Erasmus+ initiative (2025–2028) that brings together schools and educators from Croatia, Cyprus, Portugal, Spain, and Italy.
The journey began in January with a three-day kick-off meeting in Florence, Italy, where partner teams gathered to lay the groundwork for this long-term collaboration.
What did we discuss in Florence?
During the kick-off, partners aligned on the project’s core mission: helping secondary school teachers (working with students aged 12–19) integrate sustainable practices into their everyday classroom life. A key focus of the discussions was the design of the two main project outputs:
- Four Toolkits — practical, freely downloadable PDF guides with step-by-step activities, reflection questions, and real classroom photos, structured so that any school can use them regardless of resources or prior experience
- Four online courses (MOOCs) — free, self-paced courses covering four ecological topics, aimed at reaching at least 1,200 teachers across Europe, complete with certificates of achievement
Partners also agreed on quality standards for both outputs, including clarity requirements, multilingual translation, and pre- and post-course surveys to measure learning outcomes.
Four themes, four countries
Each partner school takes the lead on one ecological theme:
- 💧 Water — Croatia
- ⚡ Energy Efficiency — Cyprus
- 🌿 Biodiversity & Hydroponics — Portugal
- ♻️ Gardening & Composting — Spain
The four international training events — one per topic, hosted by a different partner school each time — will bring together teachers for hands-on workshops and activities they can easily replicate with their students.
Joining the European School Education Platform
To support collaboration and communication among partners, a dedicated TwinSpace for the TREE project has been created on the European School Education Platform (ESEP). This shared digital space will allow partner schools to exchange materials, document project activities, and stay connected throughout the three years of collaboration.
Spreading the word across Europe
From the very start, dissemination has been a shared priority. Each partner school is actively communicating about the TREE project in their own language, across a variety of web channels — from school websites and social media to newsletters and local education networks.
- 🇪🇸 Spain — La Salle Premià has shared the news on their school website and Instagram page, with content in Catalan.
- 🇵🇹 Portugal — The Álvaro Velho school has published updates on their school website, a dedicated project page, and local news outlets Rostos and Rostos, as well as on Facebook.
- 🇭🇷 Croatia — Srednja škola Mate Blažine Labin, the project coordinator, has covered the project on their school website, the local news site Flacius, 5portal.hr and across Facebook (post 2, post 2).
- 🇨🇾 Cyprus — Perifereiako Lykeio Livadion has shared project updates on Facebook.
- 🇮🇹 Italy — Europass Teacher Academy has been sharing updates across their Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn channels, reaching a wide international audience of educators.
This multilingual, multi-platform approach ensures the project reaches as many teachers, students, and families as possible across all five countries.
The bigger picture
Over three years, the TREE Project aims to reach more than 40,000 people through its dissemination campaign, with at least 3,000 educators downloading the teaching materials. All toolkits and MOOCs will remain freely available after the project ends, in all partner languages.
Stay tuned — this is just the beginning! 🌱
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